- IR 
 
 X. 
 
 ^^P 
 
 EDWARD CLARKE 
 
 Q.C., ML P. 
 
 HER MAJESTY'S SOLICITOR-GENERAL, 1886-1892) 
 
 PUBLIC SPEECHES 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 (CHIEFLY FORENSIC) 
 
 55175 
 
 094 
 o ./ /
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 SCHOOL OF LAW 
 LIBRARY
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 SIR EDWARD CLARKE 
 
 SECOND SEKIES
 
 SPEECHES 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR EDWARD CLARKE 
 
 H\ 
 
 Q.C., M.P. 
 (HER MAJESTY'S SOLICITOR-GENERAL, 1886-1892) 
 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 CHIEFLY FORENSIC 
 
 LONDON 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, LIMITED 
 
 BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
 MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK
 
 T 
 
 C5S77,
 
 / DEDICATE THESE SPEECHES 
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMBERS OF THE HARDWICKE 
 DEBATING SOCIETY 
 
 IN RECOGNITION OF THE FACT THAT IN THE MEETINGS 
 
 OF THAT SOCIETY I FOUND MY BEST TRAINING 
 
 FOR THE WORK OF THE BAR 
 
 EDWARD CLARKE 
 
 37 Russell Square 
 
 May ii, 1894 
 
 826586
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SPEECHES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE CHURCH IN WALES, FEB. 1892 ...... I 
 
 THE HOME RULE BILL, 13 FEB. 1893 17 
 
 SPEECHES AT THE BAR. 
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON, 1877 29 
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE, 1877 64 
 
 DEFENCE OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT, l886 93 
 
 GORDON-CUMMING V. WILSON AND OTHERS, l8gi . . . 147 
 
 ALLCARD V. SKINNER, 1887 217
 
 THE CHURCH IN WALES. 
 
 Speech in the House of Commons. 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1892. 
 
 [ON the 23rd February 1892, Mr. Samuel Smith moved, 
 and Mr. Dillwyn seconded, the following resolution : 
 " That, as the Church of England in Wales has failed 
 to fulfil its professed object as a means of promoting the 
 religious interests of the Welsh people, and ministers only 
 to a small minority of the population, its continuance as an 
 Established Church in the Principality is an anomaly and 
 an injustice which ought no longer to exist." Upon a 
 division the motion was negatived by 267 to 220.] 
 
 SIR EDWARD CLARKE said : Mr. Speaker, I rise to offer, 
 on the part of her Majesty's Government, and on the part of 
 those who sit upon this side of the House, a most definite 
 and uncompromising opposition to the resolution which hag 
 been moved, and to the policy which prompts that resolution. 
 Sir, I draw a distinction, and I think it is a natural one, between 
 the resolution and the policy which it is supposed to represent ; 
 for I am sure it will have been observed by those who have 
 listened to the speeches of the mover and seconder of the 
 resolution that they have paid no attention whatever to its 
 terms ; that they have made no attempt to establish any 
 one of the propositions which it contains ; and that they have 
 contented themselves by referring to other matters matters 
 ^vhich I own might form matter for consideration in debate, but 
 are not relevant to the propositions put before the House. I 
 am not surprised at the course they have taken. I was, in truth, 
 somewhat amused to find that, having long delayed in choosing 
 the terms of the resolution, the hon. member for Flintshire on 
 Friday last put upon the paper of the House this old resolution, 
 
 A
 
 2 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 which has been proposed and debated several times, and which 
 I thought had been absolutely destroyed last year by the right 
 hon. gentleman the member for Midlothian. I saw in the 
 paper to-day an inspired communication to a newspaper in which 
 the hon. member for Montgomeryshire writes that 
 
 " Mr. Gladstone desired to support the motion for Welsh 
 Disestablishment this Session as he had done last Session." 
 
 Sir, I wish he were here to-day to do it. I can conceive 
 nothing more satisfactory than that a resolution aimed at the 
 Church in Wales should be supported as the resolution of last 
 year was supported by the right hon. gentleman the member for 
 Midlothian. We have taken care to circulate largely the speech 
 of the right hon. gentleman on that occasion, and it will long be 
 remembered as a lasting demonstration of the futility I was 
 going to use a stronger word of the propositions in the resolu- 
 tion before the House. Does any one who heard him forget 
 the paternal way in which the right hon. gentleman the member 
 for Midlothian corrected the innocent indifference of the hon. 
 member for Merthyr Tydvil (Mr. Pritchard Morgan) to all the 
 history of the Welsh Church ? Does any one forget the way in 
 which he, taking the terms of this resolution, declared that he 
 could not agree with them, and stated with regard to the first 
 phrase which strikes one's attention, that " the Church of 
 England in Wales " was an entire misrepresentation, and that it 
 would be as reasonable to speak of " the Church of Wales in 
 England " as of " the Church of England in Wales ? " Last year 
 the speech of the right hon. gentleman was a very interesting 
 speech. He came down to the House in order to appear to 
 make a recantation of his statement of twenty-one years ago, 
 that it was impossible to dissever the Welsh Church from the 
 Church of England, and the principal sentence in which that 
 apparent recantation was expressed deserves to be always 
 remembered as the choicest possible example of the verbal 
 dexterity of the right hon. gentleman the member for Mid- 
 lothian. I think no such gem was ever contributed to the 
 debates of this House as the sentence in which he dealt with his 
 own assertion that it is impossible to dissever the case of the 
 Welsh Church and the Church of England. I beg the House 
 to mark the sentence. He said : 
 
 " It is quite possible that I may have used that expression 
 which may, when strictly regarded, be found to involve the 
 element of exaggeration." 
 
 The most the right hon. gentleman could do when he came 
 down to recant the declaration of twenty-one years ago, was, 
 not to say that it was an exaggeration, but to say that he
 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1S92 3 
 
 "might have used an expression" which "might, when strictly 
 regarded, be found " not to carry with it, but " to involve," not 
 exaggeration, but " the element of exaggeration." And, sir, 
 when the right hon. gentleman had done his part in that ap- 
 parent recantation, the House will remember how the right 
 hon. gentleman turned with obvious satisfaction to that which 
 was more congenial byTar, to speak out his mind, and to declare 
 that 
 
 "The Established Church in Wales is an advancing Church 
 an active Church, a living Church, and I hope very distinctly 
 a living Church, rising from elevation to elevation." 
 
 It is not we who are slow to recall that speech of last year 
 of the right hon. gentleman. That speech contained another 
 remarkable sentence, another remarkable piece of information, 
 as clearly conveyed as words can convey at all events, as 
 clearly as the words of the right hon. gentleman could convey. 
 He admitted that there might be an element of exaggeration 
 in his former speech ; but it is very significant to note the 
 terms in which he refers to the character of the task which 
 would have to be undertaken by any one who proposed to 
 disestablish the Church of Wales. He said : 
 
 " I say now what I believed then, and what I believe now, 
 that the operation of disestablishing the Church of Wales from 
 the Church of England will not be found very easy. I suspect 
 that it will be found that it is tied and knotted and tangled, I 
 might almost say, in such a multitude of legal bonds and 
 meshes with the general body of the Church of England, that 
 it would be a very formidable matter indeed to accomplish this 
 purpose." 
 
 Any one who heard the right hon. gentleman was conscious of 
 three things : first, that he was anxious to remove the effect 
 which, during twenty-one years, his earlier speech had been 
 exercising upon the minds of the people of this country, by 
 the defence which he then made for the Church of Wales ; 
 secondly, that he bore emphatic testimony to the good which 
 the Church was doing in Wales ; and, thirdly, that he gave 
 notice that whatever might be done by those who should come 
 after him, it would not be for him to do the work of Dis- 
 establishment. He did support, in a fashion, that resolution. 
 He did, I believe, pair in favour of that resolution ; but he 
 rested his case with regard to it not upon any attack on the 
 character or work of the Church in Wales, not upon the small- 
 ness of the minority of the people forming the membership of 
 the Church, but on the ground that the majority of the people 
 of Wales, he believed, desired Disestablishment. Therefore,
 
 4 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 not upon the ground of Church policy, or high policy, but upon 
 the ground of separatism, he accepted that majority for the 
 Disestablishment of the Church in Wales. He was yielding to 
 that passing craze of separatism, which has attacked the minor- 
 ity in this House, and which would set up again barriers and 
 fences between the families of our people that have been trodden 
 down and almost erased by the friendly footsteps of many 
 generations. His speech did not greatly help the assailants of 
 the Welsh Church. But what have they themselves to say in 
 regard to the resolution ? I watched the hon. members the 
 mover and seconder closely and they have taken warning by 
 what the right hon. gentleman said last year. They did not 
 this year talk about the Church of England in Wales ; nor, 
 indeed, did they make any attempt whatever to prove either of 
 the two propositions contained in the resolution. The first 
 proposition is : 
 
 " That the Church of England in Wales has failed to fulfil its 
 professed object as a means of promoting the religious interests 
 of the Welsh people." 
 
 I will examine that proposition presently; but if I had only to deal 
 with the speeches of the mover and seconder of this resolution, 
 they would require no answer upon that point at all, for they have 
 not attempted to prove that statement by any particle of evidence 
 that can reasonably be submitted to the judgment of the House. 
 Let us take the second proposition, without passing altogether 
 away from the first, to which I will return. Take the second 
 proposition, that " The Church ministers only to a small minority 
 of the population." If that assertion is true, it ought to be, in 
 some way or the other, capable of proof, and the hon. members 
 who ask the House of Commons to accept a very serious 
 proposition like this, and who lay it down as one of the premises 
 upon which the house is to move to its decision, ought to 
 give us, at all events, some sort of argument or evidence in its 
 favour. But what have these gentlemen done ? Their attempt 
 at proof is trivial and grotesque. The hon. member for Flint- 
 shire, who moved the resolution, spoke, as he had very good 
 reason for speaking, very doubtfully with regard to statistics. 
 He says that statistics have been freely handled in this House. 
 I am glad to know that they always will be freely handled. I 
 shall say something later on about the statistics prepared by 
 those who have been professionally engaged to support the case 
 which the hon. gentleman puts before the House, and I shall 
 venture to handle them somewhat freely. The hon. member has 
 his doubts about statistics ; but instead of getting as near as 
 he could to the facts with regard to the Church in Wales, instead 
 of giving any sort of excuse good, bad, or indifferent for
 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1892 $ 
 
 hiving pat the proposition down upon the paper, he gives us 
 statistics as to the attendance at Welsh churches in Liverpool 
 and Welsh churches in America. What nonsense this is the 
 speaker himself must upon reflection see. He could see in a 
 moment that Welshmen who live in Liverpool are for the most 
 part familiar with the English language, and that when he chose 
 churches in Liverpool at which only Welsh is used, he was 
 choosing churches which would not in the least represent the 
 attendances in the churches in Wales. As to these indefinite 
 statistics from America, they seem to be the information of some 
 anonymous person as to that country ; they cannot have any 
 relation whatever to the condition of affairs in Wales. And yet 
 the hon. member, after giving us these fragmentary and irrelevant 
 anecdotes, proceeds to say that he has now overwhelmingly 
 proved his proposition that the people of Wales are Noncon- 
 formists. I pass on to another matter with which the hon. 
 member dealt. He says that in past times the Church in 
 Wales was a corrupt and incompetent Church. He could hardly 
 use expressions of reproach in describing the condition of Church 
 work either in Wales or in England during, say, the reigns of 
 the Georges, with which I should not be inclined, most sorrow- 
 fully, to agree. It was not in Wales alone, but in England also, 
 that there was in those days a decadence of the Church work 
 and a degradation in the character of the ministers of the 
 Church which is now a subject of sorrowful reflection. There 
 were always good and holy and religious-minded men in the 
 Church in Wales as well as in the Church of England, who, 
 to the best of their ability, discharged their duty both to God 
 and man in the ministry of the Church ; but there were, doubtless, 
 many others of a different character; men who lived in England 
 as well as in Wales weak and degraded lives. I am glad to 
 say, however, that in Wales, as well as in England, the Estab- 
 lished Church has escaped from the discredit which has been 
 brought upon it by this latter class. Our extrication from these 
 difficulties was probably earlier than in Wales. We in England 
 were a less scattered people ; public opinion was more effective 
 and more active, and perhaps it would be right to say that 
 owing to circumstances a higher standard of character had 
 been maintained, so we escaped earlier than in Wales. But, 
 thank God, the trouble and degradation to which I refer have 
 now almost gone ! We have got rid in England, and I 
 believe in Wales, of the drinking parson, the sporting parson, 
 the gambling parson, of the pluralist, and the absentee ; we 
 have nearly got rid of the magistrate parson, and, for my own 
 part, I am very anxious that we should get rid of the political 
 parson. These reforms have already been secured to a great 
 extent in both countries, and those who are most active and vigor-
 
 6 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 ous in carrying on Church work in England and in Wales, are 
 men who devote themselves to discharging their high duties to 
 the State and to the Church in the most self-denying exercise of 
 their great calling. But when this is the case, both in England 
 and in Wales, to what purpose is it that we are to be reminded 
 of those scandals of a century and a half ago, or even of things 
 which may, in scattered instances, be found a little later ? The 
 hon. member who moved this resolution gave us, as his most 
 recent instance of misconduct in Wales, an instance of a 
 bishop, who, in 1830, was enjoying an enormous income, and 
 appointing his sons and his nephews to sinecure livings. 
 Sixty-one years is a substantial time in the history of a religious 
 body, and during those sixty-one years the progress of the 
 Church, both in England and Wales, has been a course of 
 continuous and undisturbed improvement ; and now no one, I 
 am sure, can allege or point to any scandal with regard to 
 England or to Wales comparable to that which the hon. 
 gentleman has spoken of as having existed sixty-one years ago. 
 Let me suggest to the hon. member that he was not logical in 
 bringing this sort of evidence before the House in support of 
 his resolution. If the hon. member could have said that one 
 hundred and fifty years ago the Church in Wales was an active 
 and a vigorous Church, preaching the pure faith, ministering 
 diligently and faithfully to the people, discharging its duties 
 with zeal and with earnestness, whereas now it had lost that 
 pure faith, and the energetic and true life, had become corrupt, 
 and disorderly, and inefficient, then he would have given us 
 some ground for his bringing forward his motion to disestablish 
 the Church in that part of the United Kingdom. But when he 
 points to the fact that the Church in Wales one hundred and 
 fifty years ago was feeble and unfit for its divine work, and that 
 now it has risen to such a pitch of efficiency and of purity that 
 no one will challenge it, and no one will bring an accusation 
 against it, is he not giving us the very best reason in the world 
 for not destroying a Church whose energy has thus been 
 revived and purified, and for allowing the country in which it 
 exists to profit by its teaching and its work ? I venture to say 
 that in the line he has taken, and the suggestions he has made 
 as to those scandals of a long-gone past being sufficient to 
 induce us to disestablish the Church of Wales, he is directly 
 contradicting the hopes and teachings of those great men 
 whose memory he calls upon us to reverence. Never was 
 a more fitting memorial placed in Westminster Abbey, or 
 one more thoroughly deserved, than the medallions of the 
 brothers Wesley which are upon its walls. Does not the 
 hon. member see that in asking us to disestablish the 
 Church in Wales he is acting in direct contradition to their
 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1892 7 
 
 hopes and principles, and to the Society which they have 
 founded. 
 
 Mr. SAMUEL SMITH : No. 
 
 Sir EDWARD CLARKE : I will prove it. The hon. member 
 has said that the great men he has mentioned Wesley, 
 Rowland, and Whitfield had been turned out of the Church. 
 He is mistaken. Wesley and Rowland remained faithful 
 members of the Church, and they lived and died declared 
 members of the Church. I believe there was a time in the 
 early part of his life when Wesley was not admitted to the 
 pulpits of this country ; but he was admitted to .those pulpits 
 before he died. John Wesley was re-admitted to those pulpits ; 
 and his last words, practically the words of testament by 
 Wesley to those who were to follow him in the body which he 
 had founded, constituted a declaration that he lived and died in 
 the Church of England, and he left his dying injunctions to the 
 members of that body that they should never depart from the 
 doctrines and principles of that Church. I must mention 
 another matter. We are sometimes told that the Church ought 
 to be disestablished in order that she may be freed from 
 control. We had a scene in this House, upon the 29th July of 
 last year, which was very painful to Churchmen who were 
 trying to pass a Bill to enable the Church to expel from its 
 benefices clergymen who had been guilty of gross immorality or 
 other grave offences. That Bill was opposed, and the Church- 
 men were told in so many words that we should not be allowed 
 to purify the Church ; and that if we wanted a measure to give 
 power to the Church to purify itself, we must consent to 
 Disestablishment. I remember on that occasion three hon. 
 members on the opposite side of the House the right hon. 
 member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), the hon. 
 member for the Eccles Division of Lancashire (Mr. Roby), and 
 the hon. member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool (Mr. 
 Neville) all protesting against this opposition, and the hon. 
 member for the Exchange Division of Liverpool said that to 
 postpone dealing with grave scandals until they could deal with 
 the question of Establishment would be a crying injustice. But 
 it is a mistake to say that a disestablished Church would be a 
 free Church, free from control. At the present moment the 
 great Nonconformist bodies of this country are limited not only 
 as to their discipline, but as to their doctrine, by bonds which 
 Parliament alone can break. The papers yesterday had a 
 quotation from the Methodist Recorder with regard to a 
 proposed change in the regulations of the body which follows 
 John Wesley ; and the section of the deed poll which the 
 Wesleyan Methodists are now coming to Parliament to ask to 
 be relieved from by Act of Parliament is a very remarkable
 
 8 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 one. They cannot now allow a minister to remain more than 
 three years upon a circuit, and the Wesleyan Methodists are 
 now coming to Parliament asking to be relieved from that 
 regulation which prevents them appointing any person for more 
 than three years successively to the use and enjoyment of any 
 of their chapels, and I think the hon. member, when he speaks 
 of a free Church, will find in the last line of this section a very 
 interesting refutation. It was enacted by the eleventh section 
 of Mr. Wesley's deed poll, of the 28th of February, 1784, that 
 
 " The Conference shall not, nor may, nominate or appoint 
 any person to the use and enjoyment of, or to preach and 
 expound God's Holy Word in any of the chapels and premises 
 so given or conveyed, or which may be given or conveyed upon 
 the trusts aforesaid, who was not either a member of the 
 Conference or admitted into connection with the same, or upon 
 trial as aforesaid, nor appoint any person for more than three 
 years successively to the use and enjoyment of any chapel and 
 premises already given, or to be given or conveyed upon the 
 trusts aforesaid, except ordained ministers of the Church of 
 England." 
 
 At this moment the only persons the Wesleyan Methodist 
 Conference can by law continue more than three years in one 
 place are the ordained ministers of the Church of England. 
 But, sir, I go further even than this. In the year 1818, there 
 was constituted by conference a Primitive Wesleyan Methodist 
 Society, and in the year 1871 an Act was passed, the 34th and 
 35th Vic., chapter 40, which gave legislative sanction to the 
 Constitution arrived at in 1818. It was enacted by Section 4 
 that 
 
 " Nothing in this Act contained shall authorise any alteration 
 in the doctrine of the Society as set forth in Part II. of the 
 General Principles of the Methodist Constitution." 
 
 Another section allowed them to vary parts of the Constitution 
 which referred only to discipline. The Schedule of that Act 
 contains different parts of that Methodist Constitution, from 
 which I will read an extract : 
 
 "Does not the Methodist Society profess to belong to the 
 Church of England ? Yes, as a body ; for they originally 
 emanated from the Church of England ; and the Rev. John 
 Wesley, the venerable founder of the Connexion, made a 
 declaration of a similar import within less than a year preceding 
 his decease, ' I declare once more that I live and die a member 
 of the Church of England, and that none who regard my judg- 
 ment or advice will ever separate from it.' '' (See Arminian
 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1892 9 
 
 Magazine for April, 1790.) " This however is not to be under- 
 stood as interfering with the right of private judgment in places 
 where education or prejudices attach members to other Estab- 
 lished Churches." 
 
 That, sir, is in the Designs, Part I., which they are at liberty to 
 alter ; but in Part II., which that body cannot alter except by 
 coming to Parliament, we^find this, " What is the foundation of 
 the Methodist doctrine ? " The Canonical Scriptures of the Old 
 and New Testament. "Wherein consists the unity of the 
 Methodist doctrine?" The hon. member who moved this 
 resolution said that the doctrine was drawn pure and direct from 
 Holy Writ. I will read to him the doctrine which is obligatory 
 by Act of Parliament upon this body ; it cannot be altered 
 without the consent of Parliament. The Primitive Methodist 
 Society of Ireland 
 
 An HON. MEMBER : Is it a public Act or a private Act ? 
 
 Sir E. CLARKE : A public Act. The hon. Member will 
 find it on the table from which I have taken it, and the answer 
 given to the question of what the unity of the Methodist 
 doctrines consisted in was as follows : 
 
 "Answer. In teaching and enforcing those doctrines only 
 which are contained in the Scriptures, as taught and explained 
 in the writings of the Rev. John Wesley and Rev. John Fletcher, 
 particularly Mr. Wesley's notes on the Old and New Testament, 
 his eight volumes of sermons, his appeals, and the doctrinal 
 parts of the Arminian Magazine as maintained by him and 
 published to the period of his decease, also Mr. Fletcher's 
 Checks and letters, published by Mr. Wesley." 
 
 And when the hon. member speaks of the freedom of a Church 
 which is not established as the Church of England, has he for- 
 gotten for a moment that if any body, such as the Church, comes 
 to be possessed of property or endowment of any sort or kind 
 there is a condition of things established which prevents it from 
 altering its doctrines or the terms of its membership except 
 by appeal to Parliament ? With regard to the matter of the 
 number of people in Wales, the hon. member for Swansea 
 made an observation as to his wish for a census. Well, we have 
 always wished for a census. We are anxious to have a census. 
 It is not the fault of Churchmen that there has not been a census 
 made in Wales, as there is in Ireland, to ascertain the religious 
 opinions of the people. Hon. members on the other side may 
 be justified in the opposition that they make to that proposal. 
 I do not complain ; they form their own judgment in the matter, 
 and they object to our proposal being carried out ; but, at all 
 events, if they object to any record being taken by an independent
 
 io THE CHURCH /AT WALES 
 
 and authoritative body, it is not for them to ask that we shall 
 accept the amateur and somewhat suspicious attempts that 
 they make to get these returns. With regard to this question, 
 which I consider an important one, the hon. Member who moved 
 the Resolution gave the go-by altogether to that part of the 
 case, and says, " I do not choose to deal with Welsh sta- 
 tistics." I do not think that is quite satisfactory ; I think we 
 ought to be able to find out in some way what is the proportion 
 between Churchmen and Nonconformists in Wales. The Non- 
 conformists say they desire to obtain returns of the attendances 
 at our churches. Well, they have made several attempts to do 
 this. In the year 1887 it was announced that a religious census 
 was about to be taken by a very active and vigorous Nonconform- 
 ist in Wales. He was believed to have taken it. He did not 
 publish it. About two years later he published fragments of it, 
 and explained that in the cases in which he had taken returns 
 he had a private census taken for the re-consideration of the 
 figures. I do not say the figures given were not true. One can- 
 not say that ; there was no comparative statement on the other 
 side by which to test them, but I do say they cannot call upon 
 us to pay any very great respect to an amateur experiment of 
 this kind, founded upon a principle unfair to the churches and 
 unfairly applied. I say " a principle unfair to the churches." 
 When the right hon. gentleman the member for Midlothian had 
 occasion in this House to discuss some years ago I think forty 
 years ago the motion of Mr. Miall with regard to the dis- 
 establishment of the Church of England, he protested against 
 the idea that you could test the efficiency of an Established 
 Church by counting the number of persons present at a single 
 service upon a particular Sunday. If you took the number of per- 
 sons present at public worship you would not establish a fair com- 
 parison between the Established Church and other bodies which 
 think much more of the preaching of the Word and of attending 
 at particular times in their churches and chapels. It would not 
 be a fair comparison. But I will take for examination a very 
 recent example the most recent return, I think taken by one 
 of those who have been professionally engaged in support of the 
 Liberationist movement in Wales. There has been a Welsh 
 Campaign fund started, and some of these needy Nonconformists 
 of Wales have given sums of ^500 each to establish that fund. 
 I will not inquire too curiously how it has been spent, but I 
 believe it has been partly spent in obtaining the returns published 
 in the Times newspaper in December of last year. Mr. Owen 
 Owens published in the Times of the iSth December, 1891, a 
 return which he had obtained from an inquiry set on foot by him 
 into the attendance at churches in the diocese of St. Asaph ; 
 and he said that the return he gave showed that " the proper-
 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1892 11 
 
 tion of attendants at church on a Sunday did not reach 10 per 
 cent, of the population." It was a curious conclusion, and I 
 should like to tell the House how it was arrived at. There 
 were 73 parishes taken in the diocese of St. Asaph. He got 
 out a total of 1 1 3,000 persons in the population and of 11,009 
 persons in attendance in the churches ; and he said that taking 
 these figures they represented a proportion of something less 
 than 10 per cent. I do not think that 10 per cent, is an insigni- 
 ficant number when you take the attendance at one service only, 
 at a church in a rural and in many parts a somewhat wild dis- 
 trict, upon an extremely inclement day in the month of Novem- 
 ber. But let me take it. This census can be examined, and 
 has been examined, and the figures which I am going to refer 
 to have been published, and have never been answered. At 
 Wrexham, the amateur, who was present on that day, omitted 
 five places of church worship altogether, and he estimated the 
 population of Wrexham at not less than 2000 persons below its 
 real number. In one place the two enumerators were aged 
 respectively eleven and thirteen years, and, as might have been 
 expected from such juvenile officials, there was a difference of 
 45 per cent, between them. But in nine places 9 churches 
 out of 73 the numbers given as the congregation at service 
 were smaller than the number of communicants who had com- 
 municated at these churches on Easter Sunday. I need not 
 draw the inference from that fact. But there was one place of 
 all these 73 which was correct, and only one. It was the parish 
 of Hawarden, and the parish of Hawarden, a large parish, 
 with over 6000 inhabitants, has, I am very glad to say, a dili- 
 gent Church ministry and a large attendance at the services. 
 The parish of Hawarden came out in these returns in a way 
 which corresponds with the returns made by the rector of Ha- 
 warden to the bishop of the diocese. The explanation is an 
 interesting one. The Rector of Hawarden is the Rev. Stephen 
 Gladstone, who knew this inquiry was to be made, and offered 
 to give the persons who were conducting the inquiry the figures 
 himself. They accepted the figures, and thus the parish of 
 Hawarden had the singular distinction of being the only 
 correct return, so far as we can see, in the whole of the 73. 
 Now, sir, this is an example of the statistics which have been 
 given by our opponents. With regard to them, I do not impute 
 bad faith. The controversy we are engaged in to-day may last 
 for many years and, for my own part, 1 will take care, from the 
 beginning to the end of this controversy, that no word shall be 
 spoken by me which will embitter the antagonism among those 
 who, to my thinking, ought to be working for and in one 
 common cause. I have given an example now of the statistics 
 with regard to ourselves. Let me give something which I confess
 
 12 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 I am inclined to consider more trustworthy. There are reasons, 
 as I have shown you, to distrust these statistics about us. I 
 think we are entitled to accept the statistics of our antagonists 
 in this matter about themselves. With regard to them I think 
 they ought not to complain if we examine their own statistics 
 and apply them to the consideration of the question, and I 
 want to ask the attention of the House to some interesting 
 figures. The four large bodies of Nonconformists in Wales 
 are the Calvinistic Methodists, who I believe outnumber by 
 about one-half any other Nonconformist body, the Independents, 
 the Wesleyans, and the Baptists, and they comprise the large 
 majority, almost the whole, of the Nonconformist population of 
 Wales. Now, these four bodies issue every year an account of 
 their Church membership. Two of them issue the account in 
 this form. The Calvinistic Methodists and the Independents 
 give a table of the number of members of their Church, and 
 they also give the number of the adherents of the Churches. It 
 is an important matter to remember what an adherent means, 
 and I shall read the definition of adherent, which is an authori- 
 tative definition of the Nonconformist body : 
 
 " Adherent includes all who attend regularly or irregularly at 
 Nonconformist places of worship ; all who avail themselves of 
 the religious services of ministers or members of the Noncon- 
 formist body on the occasion of sickness or death in their 
 family ; and children of all ages." 
 
 In other words, all who can be directly or indirectly described 
 as Nonconformists. The adherents of the Calvinistic Methodists 
 and Independents including the members are just over twice as 
 many as the members alone. Applying this ratio to the other 
 two bodies, who give only the number of members but not of 
 adherents, and doubling their figures, or rather more than 
 doubling their figures, in order to produce a fair result ; the 
 result of this is : The total adherents in Wales, including 
 Monmouthshire, of the four largest Nonconformist bodies is, 
 according to the last return that of 1890 814,277, from their 
 own books. That is 46 per cent, of the population of the 
 country. I think the hon. member for Swansea some years 
 ago gave an estimate in this House of the number of 
 persons who were Nonconformists, including under that 
 total the Roman Catholics, who were not included in these 
 four bodies, and he estimated them at 55,000. I believe 
 56,000 is about right. That would add another 3 per cent, 
 to the Nonconformist body ; and so, according to their own 
 statistics, including adherents, including every child and 
 everybody casually brought into contact with them, the 
 largest number they can claim of members and of adherents
 
 FEBRUARY 23, 1892 13 
 
 attached to their body, comes to 49 per cent, only of the 
 population. 
 
 Mr. T. E. ELLIS (Merionethshire) : Supposing the rest con- 
 form ? 
 
 Sir E. CLARKE : I shall finish my statement, but I assure 
 the hon. Member I shall not omit to notice the question. But 
 there is another very interesting fact with regard to this. Non- 
 conformity is not evenly distributed over Wales. The eastern 
 part of Wales the seven counties which may fairly be called 
 the eastern part of Wales are places of large population and of 
 increasing population. The six counties in the west of Wales 
 are places more sparsely occupied, of decreasing population. In 
 the seven eastern counties, which contain 72 per cent, of the 
 population, the adherents of the Nonconformist bodies, including 
 Roman Catholics, who are more numerous in that than in any 
 other part of Wales, amount to only 35 per cent, of the popu- 
 lation. So that, according to their own statistics, in that part 
 of Wales which is increasing in population, and full of prosperity 
 and promise for the future, it is not much more than one-third 
 of the population that, by any method of calculation, can be 
 brought within the Nonconformist body. It was said " Do the 
 others conform ?" I do not understand the question. There is 
 no such thing as conformity to an Established Church in the 
 sense which it necessarily has when dealing with a Noncon- 
 formist body. The claim of the Church is that all belong to 
 her body, and are entitled to her ministrations ; that the doors 
 of her churches are open to all, the ministration of her sacra- 
 ments given to all, that the consolations of religion will be given 
 by her clergy to all people amongst whom they live. The 
 strength and the power of the Established Church is that she 
 directs her unceasing effort to that large body which may not 
 have come into direct relation with any religious community at 
 all, but which is open to the influence of Christianity and the 
 influence of the teaching of a worthy Church ; and, again, I say 
 no one will deny I am sure the hon. member for Denbigh 
 (Mr. Osborne Morgan) himself, who is going to speak in this 
 debate, will not deny the value of the ministrations of the 
 ministers of the Welsh Church, although they may be given 
 to those who have not absolutely declared themselves to be 
 members of a religious body. It was not in a hasty or debat- 
 ing speech that the hon. member expressed, not long ago, the 
 very highest opinion of the work of the Welsh clergy. In an 
 article, I think in 1885, in the Nineteenth Century, he paid his 
 testimony to the character of the clergy in Wales, and a better 
 or more hearty eulogium could not be expected from the most 
 devoted defender of Church Establishment. As the question 
 has been asked, I should just like to point out this. It has been
 
 14 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 said how about those who lie outside of the membership of the 
 Nonconformist body. But when one is talking about the 
 membership of the Nonconformist body, and the number of 
 Nonconformist chapels, and the number of Nonconformist 
 ministers in Wales, one is necessarily exaggerating to a great 
 degree the influence that Nonconformity has in Wales. I 
 will give an instance. In the Diocese of St. Asaph there 
 are 208 churches of the Established Church. These 208 
 churches are served by 312 clergymen, and in each parish there 
 is a resident clergyman, who has in some cases assistant curates, 
 attending to the people among whom he lives. What is the 
 case with the Nonconformist body ? The Calvinistic Methodists 
 are a very strong body in the diocese of St. Asaph. They 
 have 330 chapels in that diocese. But they have only 70 
 pastors. Of these 70 pastors 35 have more than one chapel to 
 attend to ; and there are 43 other persons who make up the 
 ministry of the Calvinistic Methodists in that diocese to the 
 number of 113. Altogether, there are 43 persons besides these 
 pastors men, no doubt, of exemplary life and great capacity to 
 lead others to a religious life but persons obliged to occupy 
 their daily time in other and secular employment. 
 
 Mr. A. O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.) : Like St. Paul. 
 
 Sir E. CLARKE : I heard the interruption. If St. Paul had 
 not had to work for his living he would have had more time to 
 work for his Master. And I say, while these men may be men 
 of good qualities to guide and lead and encourage others in 
 religion, at all events they cannot, by the nature of things, give 
 such constant pastoral care to the people amongst whom they 
 live, as could be given by those whose whole lives were spent in 
 the discharge of those duties. There exist, then, 330 chapels in 
 the diocese of St. Asaph ; there are 70 pastors. Of these 70 
 pastors 35 have more than one chapel to attend to. I do not 
 care to dwell upon this subject. I do not care for my part, I 
 absolutely refuse to make any attack upon the organisation or 
 work of the Nonconformist bodies ; but I propose to read to 
 the House an extract, not from a writer upon our side, but from 
 a writer who was speaking from the Nonconformist side with 
 regard to this matter. On the i4th May, 1891, there appeared 
 a leading article in the Golcuad, which is the official organ of 
 the Calvinistic Methodists in Wales. This is an extract from 
 the leading article : 
 
 "As is seen in the figures used by Mr. Roberts, our chapels 
 (eglwysi) throughout North and South Wales number 1,258 ; of 
 these, 724 are in North Wales, including three in Liverpool and 
 Manchester. According to our diary there are only 236 pastors 
 to take care of all these churches. . , . . Let us take an example
 
 FEBRUARY 2J, 1S92 15 
 
 We know a district within a presbytery in North Wales where 
 there are 19 churches, and there is only one pastor in the whole 
 district. In cases of illness amongst our members, and when 
 special circumstances call for the presence of a minister, to 
 marry, to baptize, to promote beneficent movements, such as 
 temperance, &c., to hold classes for the young people, to defend 
 the rights of Nonconformists against civil and religious violence 
 and oppression, the Calvinistic Methodists have only one pastor 
 for this tract of country. In the same district there are at least 
 ten clergymen, the great majority of them evincing great zeal 
 for the " Mother Church," and untiring in their efforts to win 
 Nonconformists to their fold. Read the reports of the Sunday 
 Schools in this district, and you find a very great decline in the 
 work of the schools." 
 
 I think we are entitled to point out to hon. Members who are 
 seeking to disturb and destroy the work of that Church which 
 maintains in every parish throughout the diocese a clergyman 
 diligent in the performance of his duty, and ministering to the 
 people in whose midst he is placed ; that those on their own 
 side, who are most deeply and ardently interested in the work 
 of Calvinistic Methodism, lament the fact, that by the paucity of 
 their pastors as compared with the numbers of their churches, 
 their people are practically left without guardianship, and prac- 
 tically without guidance in spiritual matters. 
 
 Sir, the time may come when the timid inveracities of this 
 resolution shall give place to a formal scheme proposed to 
 Parliament by a Minister of the Crown for the humiliation and 
 the despoiling of the Church. If that day should come how will 
 the opposing ranks be filled, and in what principles will the 
 defenders of the Church find their inspiration. We are some- 
 times told that we are defending vested interests and a Govern- 
 ment Department. Sir, to some of us it is no question of the 
 defence of a political institution. The Church is of divine 
 foundation, its system is divinely ordered, its faith divinely 
 guarded from corruption or decay. In the Establishment we 
 find the privilege and obligation of a universal duty ; in the 
 endowments which the piety of her sons has, in past ages, 
 consecrated to the divine service we see the guarantee for the 
 independence of her ministers, and for that unfailing service of 
 charity, by which far more than this her heritage is given 
 directly to the poor, in the relief of ignorance and sorrow, of 
 sickness and of want. In our belief the inheritance of the 
 Church is the most precious possession of the poor. This is 
 not your belief, but it is that which I share with millions of my 
 fellow-countrymen. Many of those are to be found in the ranks 
 of the Liberal party ; many who, in presence of such considera-
 
 1 6 THE CHURCH IN WALES 
 
 tions as these, will refuse to join in a policy of destruction. 
 But these will not be all. There will, I believe, be with us 
 many who do not share in this belief, do not approve the system 
 of the Church, and do not profess her creed, but who accept as 
 their rule of political conduct something better than the party 
 expediency of the moment. What, Sir, is the characteristic of 
 the higher statesmanship of the day ? It is that the principle 
 that the welfare of the people is the supreme law is becoming 
 more and more the rule of our legislation, and of all the activities 
 of our public life. And this other truth we ought to have learned, 
 that the welfare of the people does not mainly depend upon 
 forms of Government, or the arrangement of political privileges, 
 or even on the distribution of the national wealth. It depends 
 on the character of the people. Who will deny that the teaching 
 of the National Church is one of the most potent of all the 
 influences which form and elevate the national character? 
 Fixed in a pure and manly faith ; secured by the very conditions 
 of its establishment from the spasmodic extravagances of 
 religious fervour, and the more permanent danger of priestly 
 domination ; it is the strongest of all existing forces to 
 strengthen and refine the spirit of our people, and to teach 
 them that in the fulfilment of Christian duty lies the only hope 
 of protecting our social life from the extremes of a cynical 
 selfishness on the one hand, and on the other from the vagaries 
 of a fantastic and predatory socialism. Sir, we of the Tory 
 party gladly and gratefully accept the honourable duty of 
 standing foremost in this cause. But we believe that as the 
 years go by there will come to our side more and more of those 
 who place the national welfare above the ties of a political com- 
 bination, and will claim to share with us the patriotic work of 
 guarding the inseparable interests of the Church and the 
 People.
 
 THE HOME RULE BILL. 
 
 Speech in the House of Commons. 
 FEBRUARY 13, 1893. 
 
 [On Monday, February I3th, 1893, Mr. Gladstone moved for 
 leave to introduce a Bill to make better provision for the 
 Government of Ireland. He was followed in debate by Sir 
 Edward Clarke.] 
 
 Sir EDWARD CLARKE : Sir, before I, with very great respect, 
 ask the House to allow me to make some observations on the 
 principles which have been laid down, and on some of the more 
 important proposals that have been brought forward, I should 
 like to be allowed to offer my personal compliment and con- 
 gratulation to the right hon. gentleman on the speech he has 
 delivered. During the last seven years the world has seen with 
 admiration the unflagging enthusiasm with which the right hon. 
 gentleman has devoted himself to this cause, and I am sure 
 there is a sentiment in the mind of every man here to-night, to 
 whatever party he belongs, of congratulation to the right hon. 
 gentleman on having been spared to give the House so splendid 
 an example of physical and intellectual power as we have all 
 admired and enjoyed. But in listening to that speech and hear- 
 ing the right hon. gentleman explain a new system of government 
 for Ireland, I could not help observing that we had not to-night 
 any ground or reason given for the proposal of that scheme at 
 all. Many in this House were hearers, seven years ago within 
 two months, of the speech in which the right hon. gentleman 
 then maintained and developed his propositions with regard to 
 Ireland. I am not going to quote much to-night. I think the 
 most futile and worthless of controversy is the pelting of opponents 
 with fragments of their old speeches, and there is no one to whom 
 I would be so cruel at this time as to apply that process, unless 
 
 B
 
 1 8 THE HOME kULE BILL 
 
 it Were the right hon. gentleman the Secretary for Scotland (Si? 
 G. Trevelyan). But 1 must quote one passage from the speech 
 of the right hon. gentleman, the Prime Minister, in 1886, as it 
 refers to a subject the omission of which from his speech to-night 
 certainly forms a marked difference between the two occasions. 
 In 1886 the right hon. gentleman said : 
 
 " I could have wished, Mr. Speaker, on several grounds, that 
 it had been possible for me on this single occasion to open to 
 the House the whole of the policy and intention of the Govern- 
 ment with respect to Ireland, the two questions of Land and the 
 Irish Government." 
 
 Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE : I am indebted to the hon. and 
 learned gentleman for his reminder. I omitted to mention 
 among the provisions of the Bill that the Land Question is 
 reserved to the Imperial Parliament for a period of three 
 years. 
 
 Sir EDWARD CLARKE : That statement is certainly an im- 
 portant one. Most of us had noted the very singular fact that 
 the speech went from end to end without mention of the subject 
 of land. The interposition of the right hon. gentleman, how- 
 ever, important as it is, does not touch the purpose for which I 
 was quoting that sentence. The right hon. gentleman said in 
 1886: 
 
 "The two questions of land and the Irish Government are, in 
 our view, closely, inseparably connected, and they are the two 
 channels through which we hope to find effectual access to that 
 question which is the most vital of all namely, the question of 
 social order in Ireland." 
 
 The right hon. gentleman then developed that proposition, 
 and pointed to the three sets of circumstances in Ireland which, 
 as he held, marked its social condition, and demanded the 
 immediate intervention of Parliament. He pointed first to the 
 fact that juries could not be got to convict. The second point 
 was the prevalence of evictions in Ireland ; and the third was 
 that there existed in Ireland, almost unchecked, a system of 
 intimidation which disturbed the social life of that country. 
 Why have we had no reference to these circumstances to-night ? 
 It is because they have all disappeared. It is because the 
 foundation of this proposal is gone. We can now easily and 
 almost everywhere find juries who will do their duty. Evictions 
 in Ireland are comparatively rare. We were told the other 
 night by the Chief Secretary for Ireland that rent was being 
 better paid in Ireland now than at any period for some years 
 past ; whilst the system of intimidation, which seven years ago 
 formed one of the reasons given by the right hon. gentleman
 
 FEBRUARY 13, 1893 19 
 
 for interfering with the Government of Ireland, has been checked 
 and put down by the firm administration of the law during the 
 intervening years. But if we missed any reference to the social 
 condition of Ireland from the speech to-night, we may remember 
 that there was a second reason which was given seven years ago 
 for the adoption of the Home Rule scheme. The first reason 
 was that the social condition of Ireland was so grave that no- 
 thing but a constitutional change of this kind would be adequate 
 to cope with it. The second was that the progress of business 
 in this House was so difficult, and we were so overwhelmed with 
 work, that we must find relief from our difficulties by sending 
 the Irish members away from this House to transact their 
 business in Dublin. Now we have a scheme proposed which is 
 not founded on any social condition which existed and was said 
 to justify the proposal of seven years ago ; while, as to the other 
 object, it has been abandoned altogether, and under this Bill we 
 are to have, not indeed 103, but 80 Irish members popping in 
 and out of the House, and taking their part, or declining to take 
 their part, in business as they may desire. This is a very great 
 change. What did the right hon. gentleman give us to-night 
 instead of the splendid preface to which the House listened in 
 1886? He made some references to the hard case of Ireland 
 since the time of the Union. He said that at that rime of the 
 Union Irishmen were encouraged to believe that they would be 
 welcomed to this country for the administration of its law and 
 the framing of its policy on equal terms with their English and 
 Scotch brethren. And, said the right hon. gentleman, you have 
 disappointed these fair expectations. You have been unjust to 
 Ireland because, for the whole series of years since the Union, 
 only two great Irishmen have sat in an English Cabinet. 
 
 Mr. GLADSTONE : I said that I myseif have only sat with 
 one Irishman out of the seventy statesmen with whom I have 
 served in Cabinets. 
 
 Sir E. CLARKE : I beg the right hon. gentleman's pardon. 
 I was coming to the limitation which I did not understand was ex- 
 pressed in the first place. The right hon. gentleman said he had 
 sat in many Cabinets, that he had had sixty or seventy col- 
 leagues in these various Cabinets, and that only one of them was 
 an Irishman. But the right hon. gentleman has himself formed 
 Cabinets three or four times ; he has been as many times again 
 an influential person in arranging the composition of Cabinets. 
 How is it he has never invited, or caused to be invited, a dis- 
 tinguished Irishman to take his seat in the Cabinet? I 
 believe that in other Cabinets than those with which the right 
 hon. gentleman has been connected some distinguished Irish- 
 men have found places, and I think it is a little too bad to 
 charge upon the whole country that neglect of Irishmen which
 
 20 THE HOME kULE BILL 
 
 appears to have been singularly conspicuous in the Cabinets 
 with which he himself has had to do. The right hon. gentle- 
 man passed on to the subject of the present strength of the 
 Nationalist Party coming to this House from Ireland. He said 
 it represented an enormous majority of the Parliamentary re- 
 presentatives of the country. I was surprised to hear him, 
 considering the revelations which have been made of late, refer 
 to secret voting as being a characteristic of Irish elections. 
 Everybody knows that the most active and successful manufac- 
 ture in Ireland of modern times has been the manufacture of 
 illiterates. At any election they have been produced in ample 
 numbers in order to evade the ballot, by securing inspection of 
 the votes given at the polling booths. To talk so confidently 
 of the virtues of secret voting and of the free electoral system 
 in Ireland, when the House has not forgotten the case of the 
 Meath elections, is surely to apply a theoretical and ideal 
 standard to the conditions of life in that country. The right 
 hon. gentleman went on to say it was true that the number of 
 Nationalist representatives had been diminished from 85 to "So. 
 He did not admit the significance of that fact. He said he 
 could not in the least understand it. We believe that the great 
 majority still held by the Nationalist members coming from 
 Ireland is owing largely to electoral practices we fain would 
 check, and to mischievous influences which are in existence in 
 the country, but which we hope may disappear, with the result 
 of continuing the reduction of the Parliamentary strength of 
 the Nationalist Party. Another omission from the right hon. 
 gentleman's speech was significant. Seven years ago the right 
 hon. gentleman, in opening his plan to the House, invited some 
 suggestions as to how he could deal with Ulster separately. 
 He mentioned several plans. The first was that Ulster 
 should be omitted from the Bill ; the second, that it should be 
 constituted a separate autonomy altogether. Another was that 
 certain important matters of legislation, such as education, in 
 which Ulster might feel particularly sensitive, should be taken 
 away from the legislative body he was making, and be given to 
 other bodies, founded on different principles and with different 
 powers. We have heard nothing of that to-day, and no 
 suggestion is made of any protection being given to Ulster. 
 There is no separate treatment of any kind, nor is even 
 that generous invitation to supply suggestions for the treat- 
 ment of Ulster repeated again in the speech that has 
 just been made. What have we had instead? Why, in its 
 place we have had a suggestion that Ulster may change 
 its mind ; in illustration of which the right hon. gentleman 
 dwelt with much emphasis, and much dramatic power, on 
 an interesting story of the year 1792. He offers to the
 
 FEBRUARY 13, 1893 21 
 
 House this suggestion, that because in 1 792 the representatives 
 of the Parliament of Black Lane were received with acclamation 
 in the streets of Belfast, that therefore we may hope that Ulster 
 is going to change its mind. That is a remote hope. One 
 hundred years have passed since the expedition from Black 
 Lane to Belfast, and if we are to wait a hundred years now till 
 Ulster changes its mind, surely it is desirable that there should 
 be some provision in the Bill for what is to happen in the 
 interval. I will now pass on to comment on points suggested 
 in the speech of the right hon. gentleman. Of course, I shall 
 not say a word upon the financial parts of the speech, for they 
 are far too difficult and complicated for immediate criticism. 
 We shall first require to see the right hon. gentleman's speech 
 in print. The first change that has been made from the old 
 Bill of 1886 is a singular and, I venture to think, a somewhat 
 important one. The House will remember that in the Bill of 
 1886 there was a Clause 37, a clause to which much attention 
 was drawn, and which had been carefully drafted, as we know 
 from Lord Thring, with the object of establishing, declaring, 
 and retaining the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. Lord 
 Thring has stated that it was considered desirable to put it 
 clearly in the clause, so that the Irish members should make 
 their compact with the House, and, in the very measure by 
 which they were receiving Home Rule and the power of self- 
 government, should pledge themselves to acknowledge the 
 supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. Clause 37 is to be seen 
 no more. From this I gather that there is to be no clause in 
 the new Bill to establish the propositions of the old Clause 
 37 ; but that it is to be transferred to some seven words in the 
 preamble. The right hon. gentleman seems on a sudden to 
 have conceived an idea of the sacredness of a preamble, which 
 to a mere lawyer who has to discuss them from time to time 
 is somewhat of a novelty! Who cares in this House, or any- 
 where else, about the preamble of a Bill ? I can point to 
 measures now on the Statute-book that have been proposed by 
 Ministers, some of whom are still in the House, which contain 
 absolute contradictions to the law, that would never have been 
 passed if it had not been that nobody in the House noticed the 
 preamble. The preamble of the Bill is always left until the 
 clauses are gone through. Does any one think that if the 
 Nationalist Members are satisfied with the clauses in the Bill 
 they will take the trouble to make much difficulty about the 
 preamble ? I think I can see the reason for transferring this 
 from the clauses to the preamble. If the subject were embodied 
 in the clauses of the Bill it would be discussed and considered 
 by the House ; whereas, if it can be put into a few words in 
 the preamble, it may be shuffled pn to the Statute-book
 
 22 THE HOME RULE BILL 
 
 without any one taking much notice of it, or anybody con- 
 ceiving himself much bound by it hereafter. Again, in the 
 Bill of 1886 certain reservations were made from the powers of 
 the Irish Parliament, among which the word " trade " was 
 mentioned. That phrase is now changed into " external trade." 
 I confess one will look with some interest to see what is the 
 reason of that change, and the extent to which the internal trade 
 of Ireland is considered to be at the absolute and independent 
 control of an Irish Parliament. But I come to a more impor- 
 tant question. As to the Viceroyalty, it certainly does seem 
 strange that an officer of State who will be in the relations 
 which must exist between the Viceroy of Ireland and the Exe- 
 cutive Government of this country, should be appointed for a 
 fixed term of years, and I do not quite see the meaning of the 
 phrase used by the right hon. gentleman about the full devolu- 
 tion of the Executive authority of the Crown upon the Viceroy. 
 That, I think, will require a little explanation, and I wait 
 until we see the exact form of words. But the next point 
 is a vital one. One great difficulty that has arisen in 
 devising for Ireland any scheme of self-government, is that 
 of the veto of the Crown on the Acts of the Irish Legisla- 
 ture. We have had on this point two absolutely irrecon- 
 cilable declarations from different members of the party 
 that is now to be asked to pass this Bill. Right hon. 
 gentlemen on the Treasury Bench have declared that the 
 veto of the Crown must be exercised on the advice of the 
 English Ministry ; and, on the other hand, both sections of 
 the Nationalist Party have declared that they will never accept 
 any position such as their being subject to veto advised by 
 the English Government. In order to avoid this difficulty 
 for it was a serious one the Government have constructed a 
 curious and, it seems to me, a fantastic piece of machinery. 
 There is to be appointed but the right hon. gentleman did not 
 tell us by whom it is to be appointed an Executive Committee 
 of the Privy Council. I need hardly say that, looking at the 
 character of the Irish Privy Council, the appointment of an 
 Executive Committee of that Council for the purpose of 
 advising the Lord Lieutenant, who is appointed for a term of 
 six years, might quite conceivably put the whole Executive 
 Government of Ireland for that period in the power of persons 
 absolutely pledged to one special sort of political opinions ; and 
 therefore it is of the greatest importance that we should know 
 by whom that Committee of the Privy Council in Ireland will 
 be appointed. But, by whomsoever appointed, the right hon. 
 gentleman has reserved a loophole in this matter has reserved, 
 I should rather say, scope for the intervention of English 
 Ministers in special cases, and that appears to me to destroy 
 the machinery which he has constructed in order to avoid this
 
 FEBRUARY 13, 1893 23 
 
 difficulty ; because the right hon. gentleman said that the veto 
 of the Lord Lieutenant, although exercised upon the advice of 
 the Executive Committee of the Privy Council, is to be subject 
 to the instructions of the Crown in special cases. But if subject 
 to the instructions of the Crown in special cases, by whom will 
 the Crown be advised to single out these cases for its 
 intervention ? I confess that between allowing the Crown, 
 if so advised, to veto Bills that come from Ireland and 
 allowing it to intervene to prevent Bills coming from that 
 country, there does not appear to me to be any very 
 material difference. If the Executive Government of this 
 country were to advise her Majesty to disallow an Act which 
 was felt to be unjust and unwise and unfair to the people of that 
 country, their responsibility would be exactly the same as 
 though they had never set up this Executive Committee of the 
 Privy Council to stand between them and their own responsi- 
 bility. I pass to the next point, which is another very 
 important one, namely, the constitution of the Legislative 
 Council. The Legislative Council a sort of Senate it will be 
 called a Senate I take it -is to be set up. The provision which 
 was formerly made that the members of the Legislative Council 
 should have a property qualification is to be dropped ; but, 
 curiously enough and I do not know what some of the most 
 ardent Radical supporters of the Government will say to this 
 the Legislative Council is to be established on the basis of 
 property qualification of the voters themselves ; and this 
 Legislative Council is to consist of 48 persons. Now, I would 
 ask the attention of the House and I think I may fairly ask 
 the attention of the Government itself to this what will be the 
 effect of this proposal if it be carried out ? For the purpose of 
 constituting a Lower House of the Irish Parliament, the 103 
 members now elected by the Irish constituencies are still to be 
 returned ; but if the two Houses differ after a Bill has been sent 
 up a second time, the two Houses are to sit together, and a 
 majority of he two Houses has to decide upon the measure. I 
 think, sir, one can see why 48 was the number chosen for the 
 Senate. In the original Bill, the Upper House was to consist 
 of 103, and the Lower House of 206 members. At present the 
 103 members to compose the Lower House are divided into 80 
 Nationalists and 23 Loyalists, so that if the latter vote with the 
 whole of the Senate they will still be outnumbered. The 
 Legislative Council has been reduced just low enough to enable 
 the present majority of Nationalist members to be absolutely 
 certain that they can over-rule any resistance. But, considered 
 in the light of a later revelation in the speech, this retention of 
 the 103 members who are to sit in the Irish Parliament is 
 curious indeed, for it imposes on the Government the necessity 
 of proposing for Ireland one of the most eccentric and fantastic
 
 24 THE HOME RULE BILL 
 
 Franchise and Reform Bills imaginable. The present arrange- 
 ment of the electoral system of Ireland with regard to the 103 
 members is to last for six years. What excuse is there for this ? 
 There is no part of the United Kingdom more full of electoral 
 anomalies than Ireland, and yet you are to have the present 
 system stereotyped, the 103 members returned by the present 
 imperfect system, and to secure that for six years no reform shall 
 take place in these anomalies. But it is still more remarkable that 
 you are asked to take the trouble of creating another set of con- 
 stituencies who are to elect 80 members. They cannot be the same 
 constituencies you must have a new arrangement of constituen- 
 cies to get these 80 members ; are they to be the same persons ? 
 Are the 103 members who are to sit in Ireland qualified also to 
 sit in the Imperial Parliament, or are they to be different 
 representatives ? The suggested arrangement is so fantastic 
 and strange that I imagine this Bill must have been drafted in 
 detachments, and one part must have been stereotyped before 
 that portion to which I will now proceed to call attention was 
 framed. A more interesting and more impartial disquisition 
 was never heard in this House than during the half-hour in 
 which the right hon. gentleman discussed the retention of the 
 Irish members. One thing .is clear ; the right hon. gentleman 
 has not changed his own opinion upon this point since 1886. 
 It looks very much as if he had been outvoted by his colleagues, 
 and desired to revenge himself by exhibiting to the House the 
 different arguments which have been urged by the right hon. 
 gentlemen who have assisted him in framing his Bill. He put 
 a series of conundrums to the House as to what would happen 
 in one case, and what would happen in another case ; and he 
 concluded by saying that this matter must be referred to the 
 consideration of the House. The House now sees what the 
 right hon. gentleman would like. He would like the House to 
 stand by him as against some of his recalcitrant colleagues, and 
 to assist him in maintaining the proposition which he made in 
 1886. But, after all, the Prime Minister of the country, when 
 he comes down here to propound a great measure of constitu- 
 tional reform, is hardly entitled to throw upon the table of the 
 House a proposal to which he has, evidently, deep-rooted and 
 final objections, and ask the House to pass it. Is there a 
 Government, or is there not ? If there be a Government, the 
 House is in the habit of asking from that Government not a 
 philosophical disquisition from the Treasury Bench, but some 
 intimation of what the Government really means. Do they 
 wish the members to come to this House from Ireland, or do 
 they not? The right hon. gentleman, the member for New- 
 castle, said, seven years ago, that if they were retained we 
 should have all the present block of business, the present 
 irritation and exasperation ; English work would not bo done,
 
 FEBRUARY 13, 1893 25 
 
 and Irish feelings would not be conciliated but exasperated. 
 That I believe to be true. I believe that the Prime Minister 
 has proved as he has, in effect, repeated his statement of 
 1886, that it passed the wit of man to devise a scheme by which 
 the Irish members could be allowed to come to this House and 
 take part in local as distinguished from Imperial deliberations. 
 And now the right hon. gentleman professes to have discovered 
 such a scheme. He says the plain, unlettered Englishman and 
 Scotchman and perhaps he had in his mind certain representa- 
 tives of Northampton and Edinburgh the plain unlettered 
 Englishman and Scotchman would rebel at the idea that Irish- 
 men should come here to govern him, while they governed 
 themselves in Dublin ; and so it is suggested that you are to 
 limit the voting power of the Irish members. I should just like 
 to test, at the moment when it is propounded, the possibility of 
 carrying out that proposal. In the first place, the Irish Mem- 
 bers are not to vote upon any Bill expressly relating to Great 
 Britain. Good. But suppose the Irish members should desire 
 to overturn the Government when the proposal which has been 
 made this evening is in actual operation. A Registration Bill 
 is introduced which does not apply to Ireland. The Irish 
 members may come down and ask that it shall apply to Ire- 
 land ; and if that is carried, then the Bill is to apply to Ireland. 
 From that moment the Irish members may vote upon the Bill, 
 and may defeat it. Then, again, a Suspensory Bill is to be 
 brought in by the Government with regard to Wales, to suspend 
 the continued existence of the Established Church in that 
 Principality. That is not a Bill upon which the Irish representa- 
 tives would be allowed to vote. Good. But what chance will 
 that Bill have of passing if the Irish members are not permitted 
 to vote on it ? To accept the proposal of her Majesty's Govern- 
 ment will be to destroy all chance of passing that Bill, for I 
 cannot think that the Government would lend themselves to the 
 unconstitutional course of inviting members who, after 2nd 
 September, would be no longer entitled to take part in our 
 discussions, to assist in passing a Bill upon a subject which does 
 not concern them. They are, we are told, to be entitled to take 
 part in votes upon want of confidence, and one understands the 
 reasons why they should be allowed so to vote. Suppose 
 that this Home Rule Bill is passed, and the scheme is 
 established and at work, and suppose that the Government 
 possessed the general confidence of the House as then con- 
 stituted, and suppose that the Irish Members should come 
 down and turn out the Government, who is to follow ? The 
 Government that is to come in would not have a working 
 majority on any subject relating to England, and we would 
 have a minority of members of this House supporting a Gov- 
 ernment which would only exist because jf its opponents came
 
 26 THE HOME PULE BILL 
 
 into office they would be immediately ejected by the Irish vote. 
 Let me put another illustration. A right hon. friend of mine 
 was naturally anxious to know whether, if Irish members could 
 not vote on any particular subject, they would not be allowed 
 to speak, and he was promptly assured that the disability to 
 vote would carry with it the disability to talk. But what about 
 moving the adjournment of the House ? The right hon. gentle- 
 man seems to think that votes of want of confidence are raised 
 only occasionally, and without any relation to the business of 
 the House. But that is not so. A vote of want of confidence 
 except immediately after a General Election, when there is 
 no accounting for it at all is generally connected with some 
 legislative project which the Ministry have taken up, or refuse 
 to take up. The characteristic of this House is, that it is not 
 merely the greatest Legislative Assembly that the world has ever 
 seen, but it, more than any other that exists, keeps a close and 
 intimate knowledge of current public affairs, and at the same 
 time enforces its authority if it sees a Ministry going wrong. 
 Take question time of this House. If with regard to some im- 
 portant matter of foreign affairs a question is asked'on this side 
 and answered from the other, the answer may produce such an 
 effect upon the House that within an hour a motion is made for 
 the adjournment of the House ; the object and the meaning of 
 that motion, if it be carried, being that the House desires to 
 censure the Minister on the spot for the line which he has 
 taken. What about the Irish members ? Are we in such a 
 case to wait until they can be summoned from Dublin in order 
 that they may come over here to take part in the vote of cen- 
 sure ? The proposition is, I venture to say, impossible. I 
 believe it to be as true now as it was in 1886, that no human 
 wisdom can devise means by which, in a House like this, not 
 only of legislative capacity, but also of executive responsibility 
 and efficiency, you can have one set of members coming only 
 for specific purposes, and another set of members to deal with 
 the current business of the country. The right hon. gentleman 
 put this matter very frankly and impartially before the House. 
 He appeared to treat it as if it were one of those philosophic 
 proposals upon which either conclusion might be arrived at 
 without any serious results ; but, to my mind, it goes to the 
 root of his whole Bill. It is vital to the consideration of this 
 question that the country should know what is to be the form 
 of the proposals, when her Majesty's Government have had 
 time and the humble assistance of members of this House in 
 endeavouring to persuade them to make up their own minds 
 definitely on the subject. We want to hear something else 
 before this discussion comes to an end. We understand 
 from the ordinary channels of information that this Bill, 
 carefully as its secret has been kept from the country, was
 
 FEBRUARY 13, 1893 27 
 
 revealed to the representatives, or to some of the repre- 
 sentatives, of the Irish Nationalist Party. I think it is some 
 few weeks since the hon. and learned gentleman, the 
 Member for North Louth (Mr. T. M. Healy), speaking in 
 Ireland, said : 
 
 "We know what the Bill is, and that it is going to be better 
 than the bill of 1886." 
 
 I want to know, if that is the case, what bargain has been made 
 by which the Irish Nationalist members accept or are prepared 
 to support this Bill ? I want to know whether the terms of the 
 bargain are really before the House, or whether these proposals, 
 or some of them, put forward in a tentative and hesitating way, 
 are merely the groundwork upon which amendments and altera- 
 tions may be made in the course -f the discussion of the Bill ? 
 I should be very much surprised to hear that the Nationalist 
 members have accepted the proposals which have been 
 shadowed forth in the speech of the right hon. gentleman to- 
 night ; and I should be still more surprised to hear that they 
 were satisfied with the arrangement made about the 80 Irish 
 members and the position which they are to have in this House. 
 But I was pointing out that this goes to the very root of the 
 Bill. It is not only that the point is of so very great importance 
 in itself, and not only that the proposals of the Government 
 would, as I believe, disorganise the whole life of Parlia- 
 ment, disturb our legislative work, and cripple us for the 
 effective exercise of that control of public affairs which the 
 House now enjoys and exercises ; but if this plan be not 
 adopted, if the right hon. gentleman should yield, as 
 he must ultimately yield, to the objections that are made, and 
 should agree that the Irish members should not come here, 
 there goes at one sweep the whole of the financial portion of 
 this Bill. If the Irish members are to stay in this House, then 
 those difficulties occur which I have ventured to indicate. If 
 they are not to come to this House, the whole of the financial 
 part of this Bill must be withdrawn and reconstructed ; for it 
 has not and cannot have any reference at all to a system under 
 which the Irish members are to be excluded. I have ventured, 
 I hope not unsuccessfully, to put before the House the observa- 
 tions that occur to me upon the moment on hearing the pro- 
 posals of this new Bill. One could not help feeling touched by 
 the tone in which the right hon. gentleman at the end of that 
 great speech spoke of the efforts which he himself was making 
 to give a better state of things to Ireland, and of the anxiety he 
 had as to the acceptance of those proposals. I do not think 
 that they can be accepted. At all events they can only be 
 accepted after a long and bitter Parliamentary contest, and 
 after an appeal to the constituencies. The lists are set ; the
 
 2 8 THE HOME RULE BILL 
 
 challenger's trumpet has sounded ; and the answering note, 
 feeble it may be in tone, but I hope not indistinct, has been 
 promptly heard. We enter on this contest without a shadow of 
 doubt as to its issue. It is true we face to-day in this House a 
 majority, but it is a scanty, a casual, and a precarious majority. 
 I do not believe that that majority has union enough or 
 strength enough to force through the House these novel and 
 dangerous proposals. But outside this House, anxiously 
 awaiting the tardy revelations of to-night, stand the millions 
 of electors to whom before this plan can take effect the whole 
 matter must be referred. When we shall have wasted this 
 Session and all its opportunities of usefulness over this Bill, 
 you cannot escape the necessity of that appeal. You know you 
 have no mandate from the country for this Bill. Seven years 
 ago your policy was rejected, and from that day to this no 
 single member of your Party has ventured to commit himself to 
 any single definite proposition upon any one point in the Bill. 
 The Prime Minister has scattered here and there ambiguous 
 hints ; his followers have prudently abstained from forecasting 
 the provisions of a Bill for which I believe most of them have 
 hoped they would never have to vote, and they have contented 
 themselves with appealing to the electors for their votes, and 
 have asked them to give them their support as a mark of con- 
 fidence, and to wait hopefully till they came back with all 
 manner of good things. Sir, this showman's policy of conceal- 
 ment and surprise cannot succeed. You cannot subject a free 
 people to great constitutional changes which you have never 
 ventured to explain. That would be despotism under the 
 forms of freedom. Pass this Bill through this House if you 
 can, and within a year you will be fighting for your Parlia- 
 mentary lives before the constituents whom you have tried to 
 trick, and whose hopes of useful legislation you will have 
 wholly disappointed. We will challenge the judgment of 
 this House upon the matter at such times and upon such 
 issues as may best enable us to test and prove how far our 
 opponents are agreed, and what is the measure and ex- 
 tent of the obedience which English Liberals, of the new 
 pattern, are prepared to yield to their Nationalist masters. 
 Wherever this contest is to be fought, we face it with an 
 unwavering confidence of success, strong in the decision 
 pronounced by the country seven years ago ; strong in the 
 happy experience of those seven years which has approved 
 and affirmed that judgment ; strong in the conviction that 
 that decision was not a passing whim, that it was no 
 momentary outburst of political passion, but the wise judg- 
 ment and the immutable resolve of the people of the United 
 Kingdom,
 
 THE PENCE CASE. 
 
 [ON the 1 8th September, 1877, Louis Staunton, Patrick Staun- 
 ton, Mrs. Patrick Staunton, and Alice Rhodes were put 
 upon their trial, at the Central Criminal Court, before Mr. 
 Justice Hawkins, charged with the wilful murder of 
 Harriet Staunton, the wife of the first-named prisoner. 
 The prosecution was conducted by Sir John Holker, 
 Attorney-General, and Mr. Poland ; and the prisoners were 
 severally defended by Mr. Montagu Williams, Mr. Doug- 
 las Straight, Mr. Edward Clarke, and Mr. Percy Gye. 
 Late in the evening of the 26th September, after a 
 summing-up by Mr. Justice Hawkins which lasted more 
 than ten hours, the prisoners were all found guilty and 
 sentenced to death. Public dissatisfaction with the verdict 
 was strongly expressed, and four hundred members of the 
 medical profession signed a memorial to the Home Secre- 
 tary upon the subject. Alice Rhodes received a free 
 pardon, and the sentence upon the other prisoners was 
 commuted to penal servitude for life.] 
 
 The following speech was delivered OR the sixth day of the trial 
 in defence of Patrick Staunton : 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : May it please your lordship, gentlemen of 
 the jury, I am very thankful that the moment has come when, 
 after you have heard the whole of the evidence in this case, I 
 have to discharge the duty of addressing you on behalf of 
 Patrick Staunton. 
 
 I say nothing of the strain upon all of us, upon you and upon 
 my lord, as well as upon those who sit around me, of the 
 conduct of a trial of this kind. The interests that are 
 committed to our care are so large that it is impossible one can 
 discharge a duty of this kind without a feeling of the most 
 anxious responsibility, and I say that I am thankful that the
 
 30 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 time at last has come when, having all the evidence before you, I 
 can deal with it on behalf of Patrick Staunton, and argue it on 
 his behalf as I trust to argue it while I address you, not only 
 that upon the evidence before you there is no proof that he is 
 guilty of the murder with which he is charged, but also that the 
 evidence falls short, and falls far short, of bringing home to him 
 any such culpable negligence or misdoing as would entitle you 
 to find him guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. 
 
 Gentlemen, I remember your kind interposition when my 
 friend Mr. Williams was speaking, the interposition of yourself, 
 as well as of my lord, expressing your anxiety to hear all that 
 was to be said, without grudging to the counsel who have to 
 discharge this duty the time it may take them to deal with the 
 complicated matters in this case. I believe I shall not have to 
 occupy your attention long. My learned friend Mr. Williams 
 on the one hand, and my friend Mr. Straight upon the other, 
 have dealt, and dealt strongly, with many matters upon 
 which I should have been called upon to say a word to 
 you. I am perfectly satisfied to leave these matters as they 
 affect Patrick Staunton in the exact position in which they 
 have been left by the observations of my two learned col- 
 leagues, and I am quite sure that you will not think I am 
 seeking to evade any point in the case because I simply 
 abstain from repeating, and possibly weakening by repeti- 
 tion, the observations which were strongly made to you yester- 
 day by those gentlemen. But before I address myself to 
 the facts of the case with regard to Patrick Staunton, I am 
 bound to say a word as to some observations which were made 
 to you by my learned friend Mr. Straight towards the close of 
 his speech, as to the relation in which Mrs. Patrick Staunton 
 stands with regard to her husband, and in what I say I am 
 entitled to say here exactly, and am saying exactly, what I 
 should have been instructed to say if I had been representing 
 both of them instead of Patrick Staunton only. 
 
 My friend Mr. Straight has pointed out to you that in certain 
 aspects of this case, the aspect in reference to the negligence, to 
 the negligent administration of food, or the carelessness with 
 which food was given to Harriet Staunton, that with regard to 
 the question of manslaughter it will become a substantial 
 question for you whether Mrs. Patrick Staunton was not acting 
 under the immediate and direct control of her husband, and he 
 has enforced his observations upon that point by recalling a 
 witness and obtaining the statement that Patrick Staunton, 
 violent as he has undoubtedly been shown to be in certain 
 matters which are recorded in this case, was violent also to his 
 wife, on one occasion even striking her. As the counsel of 
 Patrick Staunton, so far from having anything to complain of
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNfON 31 
 
 With regard to my friend taking that line or bringing that out, I 
 am entitled to and I do adopt it and enforce it. 
 
 Patrick Staunton undoubtedly must have been the person 
 who made the arrangements for money to be paid for Harriet 
 Staunton's being kept at Cudham. Patrick Staunton was not a 
 person long and constantly absent from home, he was fre- 
 quently, I might almost say constantly, at home. You have 
 heard that when he went out his wife very often went out with 
 him. He was there during the day, painting, an occupation 
 which would keep him at home for a considerable time, and I 
 do not on his behalf complain in the least of the tone that my 
 learned friend has taken ; so far from complaining of it I say to 
 you that as Patrick Staunton's counsel I recognise and adopt 
 the line which my learned friend took. Patrick Staunton at 
 least has nothing to complain of with regard to his \yife. He 
 has nothing to say as to her, except that if she committed any 
 fault that fault was committed under his control and on his 
 culpability, and if she committed any fault or made any false 
 statements afterwards in the course of the case, those state- 
 ments made will have been made to shield him. 
 
 Gentlemen, the position in which Harriet Staunton was at 
 this house must be looked at with reference to the statement 
 which is before you that money was paid by Louis for her 
 support, and with reference also to four letters which have been 
 read to you once in the course of the case, but which seem to me 
 so important that I shall read them to you again. They are 
 the letters dated June, August and September, 1876 letters in 
 which Louis Staunton writes to his brother in affectionate 
 terms, and especially with reference to Harriet Staunton being 
 at Cudham, and I ask you in deciding, as you will have to 
 decide amongst all the other matters in the case, the question 
 for what purpose was Harriet Staunton taken to Cudham, or 
 kept there I shall ask you to remember those letters, which at 
 all events were not invented for the case, found half a year or 
 nine months after they are written, found when the persons are 
 in custody, and letters which at all events you can rely upqn as 
 showing correctly what the relations and feelings of the parties 
 were at the time these letters were written. 
 
 Gentlemen, on the 28th June, 1876, Louis Staunton, dating 
 from Gipsy Hill, writes to his brother this letter : " My dear 
 boy, many many thanks for your kind letter. I am glad to say 
 my bone is better, but no one knows, dear boy, what I have had 
 to put up with from Harriet the last six months. Her temper 
 has been something frightful. I have talked to her for hours 
 together, and tried to reason with her ; but it is of no use. 
 From the time she gets up in the morning until she goes to bed 
 at night she does nothing but try to aggravate me and make me
 
 32 THE PENGE CASE 
 
 as miserable as she possibly can. Although I say it, I have 
 been quite disheartened and cried for hours to think that I 
 should have laid out money to have things nice and no one to 
 take an interest in the place. I am truly unhappy ; but, oh, 
 dear boy, I can never thank you and dear Lizzie enough for all 
 your kindness to me, but rest assured I shall not forget it. I 
 should have been glad to have been with you a few days, but 
 am now afraid I shall not be able to, having had a few words 
 with Bradford which I will tell you about when I see you on 
 Friday. I shall be at the hospital about three o'clock. Your 
 ever affectionate brother, Louis Staunton." The expression " I 
 shall be at the hospital " is explained by the postscript " I have 
 not heard how dear papa is yet. I am going over to Brixton 
 to-day." At that time undoubtedly their father was in the 
 hospital, in which he afterwards died. On the 28th August he 
 writes again to his brother : " Dear boy, I was indeed glad to 
 get your letter this morning, and grieved to hear the two 
 children are still so ill, but trust they will get better. It makes 
 me quite miserable to think you and Lizzie are in such trouble. 
 I want you to send Harriet to me immediately ; I am sure you 
 cannot be bothered with her now. Give my love to her. I 
 hope to see her soon, and if possible will run down. With 
 fondest love from your affectionate brother, Louis." " September 
 1st. My dear boy, I have received your letter, and am sorry I 
 said anything, but the fact is I was very annoyed at the time to 
 think that Harriet had given you any trouble, for I know you 
 have enough already with the two children ill, but I trust you 
 will not say or think anything more about it. I had hoped to 
 see you all to-day, but suppose it will now be Monday. With 
 fondest love to all, your very affectionate brother, Louis." 
 
 Gentlemen, I have read these letters through because amidst 
 the mass of doubtful material upon which you will have to 
 express an opinion in this case, this material is at all events 
 trustworthy, and these letters undoubtedly show that in the 
 months of August and September, 1876, the brothers were on 
 affectionate terms ; that Louis so wrote with regard to his wife 
 to Patrick ; Patrick obliged him by taking care of Harriet for 
 such reasons as are suggested in these letters ; and at all events 
 they are letters which you cannot read and believe that there 
 was any improper intention, if not plan or scheme, of ill-doing 
 to Harriet then in the minds of these two brothers. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, she goes down to stay at Cudham, and 
 there is one date upon which I want to make an observation in 
 passing, because I think it is important to the whole case for 
 the defence, and my friend Mr. Williams will forgive me, I am 
 sure, if I refer to a matter which he himself has touched upon 
 the letter of the 1 9th August, which has been mentioned a great
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTOX 33 
 
 deal and which speaks of the lost letter. You are told by Clara 
 Brown and you will attach so much weight to it as you think 
 her evidence in the case is entitled to you are told by Clara 
 Brown that it contained an expression about Louis and Alice 
 being happy, or a better time coming, or something of that kind, 
 when Harriet was out of the way. It may be suggested to you 
 that at that very time Harriet was out of the way at Cudham, 
 and that, therefore, that must have referred to something else 
 than her being away from London. If that is so, I think it is 
 important to recollect the tenor of those letters, which show 
 conclusively that if she was staying at Cudham at the time it 
 was only temporarily ; that at all events at that time there had 
 been no permanent arrangement made for her to stay at 
 Cudham. Well, now, gentlemen, she comes down and she 
 stays at Cudham, and we have a mass of evidence before you 
 with regard to the fact that she was, to a certain extent, con- 
 cealed from observation. I am anxious to keep this part of the 
 evidence separate from that part which relates to her actual 
 treatment, and for this reason, it is given by a different set of 
 witnesses. You have a certain number of witnesses who prove 
 this beyond a doubt ; they prove she was not in the habit of 
 being about at Cudham, out of the house, and they prove 
 certainly that when Mrs. Butterfield was endeavouring to find 
 out where her daughter was, her daughter's place was concealed 
 from her. It is quite clear that Patrick in the course of the 
 conversation denied that he knew anything about where her 
 daughter was, and the same observation applies to other con- 
 versations at which the prisoners were present ; but the 
 important question for you and one of the most important in 
 the case is this, does that concealment at Cudham necessarily 
 imply anything more than concealment, than her being kept out 
 of sight ? Patrick Staunton denied that he knew anything of 
 where she was, and at that time, undoubtedly, she was in his 
 house. But see the reason for which he has taken her into his 
 house ; see the way in which it may have been put to him by 
 the brother who wrote these letters to him with regard to Harriet 
 Staunton. 
 
 The brother was not happy with her. He says in that letter 
 he was anxious that she should go and live at Cudham. There 
 was no question of taking a place in the country, and out of the 
 way. At this time, when this correspondence is going on, 
 Patrick Staunton has for a year been living and carrying on his 
 profession as an artist in a little cottage in one of the loveliest 
 parts of England. That cottage he had probably taken for the 
 pursuit of his profession, and he is residing there, and although 
 there is not much room in the house it is arranged that Harriet 
 Staunton shall go down ; but for reasons to which Patrick Staun- 
 
 c
 
 34 THE PENGE CASE 
 
 ton could not have been to a great extent a party. Louis 
 was anxious that Mrs. Harriet Staunton should not be seen by 
 her mother. Might it not be you cannot tell ; you have no 
 evidence on either side after what took place in London but 
 might it : not well be that Mrs. Staunton herself was anxious 
 that her mother should not find her. Let us deal with the 
 position she is in. Let us remember the fact that her mother 
 had given evidence and attempted to piove that she was insane. 
 One of my friends pointed out to you the horror that one who 
 is conscious that something is the matter with the brain would 
 feel of anybody who attempted to put her into a lunatic asylum. 
 Let us remember that her mother had not seen her for twelve 
 months before her marriage, and we know that when she did 
 come she had a conversation for a few minutes, which my 
 learned friend Mr. Williams commented upon, and may it not 
 well have been that Harriet Staunton herself was desirous not 
 to be found by her mother. You have her own sentiments in 
 the letter she wrote to her mother so soon after that interview, 
 in which she expresses the wish that she should not see the 
 mother again, and in which she said her husband was desirous 
 that the mother should not come. Does it come to anything 
 more than this : that in the first place she should not be found 
 by her mother ; and in the next place, that there was some 
 other reason for it. It would be incomprehensible if there 
 really were this plan and plot of murder which has been 
 shadowed out to you. Strangely enough, Louis Staunton, 
 whose one object, if he had been a party to a conspiracy or com- 
 bination to destroy his wife, would be to keep himself as far as 
 possible from. the place to which she was to be taken, and at 
 which this terrible resolve was to be carried out, arranged 
 to go down and live with Alice, choosing the place only 
 about twenty minutes' walk from the cottage where his wife 
 is staying ; and so long as he was down there, so long as his 
 being there was concealed from the knowledge of his wife, 
 every time she went out into the village, every walk she took 
 about the place might have revealed to her the fact that her 
 husband was living down there with Alice Rhodes, and there 
 comes at once a second reason for her being checked and not 
 being allowed to ramble about the place near which, for some 
 inscrutable reason, Louis Staunton has actually come down to 
 live. If she goes out she may meet him or Alice Rhodes, or may 
 be given the information that he is living within a mile of the 
 place in which she is kept. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, if Patrick Staunton did deny the fact of her 
 being there, was she checked and prevented from going out ? 
 Upon what Clara Brown said, with regard to that part of the 
 case I shall have a word to say presently, but so far as any
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 35 
 
 evidence goes there is only the general evidence of the man 
 who tells you that, in a tone and with a manner from which he 
 thought he was joking he thought it a joke at the time Patrick 
 Staunton one day said to her outside the house, " Here is a 
 policeman, and he will run you in." The man thought it a joke. 
 I think with that exception there is no direct evidence that she 
 was checked or limited at all with regard to going out of the 
 house. 
 
 One observation I should like to make at this moment, because 
 it comes in order of time, although I confess I do not attach 
 much importance to it. It must be admitted that Harriet 
 Staunton was concealed from observation down there. I leave 
 the suggestion with you. I have suggested to you that that was 
 not merely in order to prevent her being found out by Mrs. 
 Butterfield, but also to prevent her finding out the % place where 
 Louis was living, and where he was living with Alice Rhodes as 
 his wife. But you will observe when you come to the evidence 
 which has been given by persons who say they watched the 
 place, or were passing near the house, that they did not see her 
 about at any time. I only want to call your attention to this 
 observation, that a good deal of that evidence relates to the last 
 month or two months during which she was at Cudham, and 
 that with regard to that there is an explanation of her not going 
 out, which certainly does not require the interposition of Patrick 
 Staunton. It may have been that during that time the emacia- 
 tion which was afterwards so extreme was gradually coming 
 upon her, she was wasting away and becoming weaker. There 
 would be a reason in her own bodily condition. I do not say 
 " health " for a special reason, but there would be a reason in 
 her own bodily condition, as well as in the wish entertained by 
 Patrick Staunton and his wife, that she should not go out. 
 
 That being so, let me point out to you that if there is that 
 explanation of her being kept concealed, one can understand 
 but cannot sympathise with it ; of course one cannot approve, it 
 is impossible to approve it, but you are not asked to do so ; 
 but one can understand, perhaps, the way in which Patrick 
 Staunton would act, and understand that he would, for the sake 
 of his brother, help to keep the wife in some sort of concealment 
 there. 
 
 But the next step that you are asked to take is a tremendous 
 one. You are asked from the evidence in this case to conclude 
 that, if not at the time when Harriet Staunton first went to that 
 place, at all events at some time while she was living in that 
 house, there was either a combination between these persons to 
 do her to death slowly by starving and neglecting her, or that 
 there was that intention on the part of some one, with the 
 knowledge and without the interposition of the other.
 
 36 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : Or to do her grievous injury, grievous 
 bodily injury, or if they did that, the probable consequences of 
 which would be to reduce her to such a state as that death would 
 be the probable result, if they were doing acts which they were 
 aware, and reasonably ought to be aware would lead to that 
 result, that would be equal to murder without the actual absolute 
 intention. 
 
 Mr. CLARK?; : I will neither try to repeat, nor comment upon, 
 anything my lord says. I know well he will lay down the law 
 in his summing up. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : I mention that in order that you may 
 deal with it before it comes to be too late, and that I may not 
 conceal from you anything that is passing in my mind. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I am very much obliged to your lordship, but 
 I think there are different aspects of the case which are present 
 to my mind, and I propose to deal with them in their order. 
 You, gentlemen, are asked in this case, and asked on the 
 authority of one important bit of evidence, to believe that in 
 August there was the intention that she should be done to 
 death, not merely that she should be ill-treated, concealed, 
 neglected, but that she should be got out of the way, and there 
 was no doubt about it, because you heard what Clara Brown 
 said, and what the interpretation was that she put upon that 
 letter, an interpretation which suggested that there was the 
 deliberate intention that she should be put to death. 
 
 I will deal in their order with those facts of the case which 
 would throw upon Patrick Staunton the burden of having been 
 negligent, or having been a party at a later time to neglect 
 which would cause her death, or to a combination, whatever it 
 may be. I will deal with the whole evidence, but at this moment 
 I am asking you to consider this point, that with regard to the 
 whole current and tenor of the conduct of Patrick Staunton in 
 assisting to keep her in a certain sense concealed in his house 
 there is an explanation, there is a possible motive ; but it is a 
 motive which fails to be sufficient when you come to the larger 
 crime with which the prisoners are charged. 
 
 It might well be that from the affection which appears to have 
 existed between the brothers, and which would induce him to 
 do those very matters which I do not approve or defend, it 
 might well be that he would consent to help to keep the lady 
 concealed, but can it be that he lent himself to the deliberate 
 intention that he would put her to death, that he would be a 
 party to her being murdered by starvation and negligence in his 
 own house ? Is it possible to explain his conduct upon any such 
 hypothesis as that ? Why, gentlemen, what was the motive ? 
 In his case it was no motive of money. So far as there was 
 money, if money was of any importance in the poor little house-
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 37 
 
 hold which seems to .have existed in that little cottage at Cud- 
 ham, so far as money would be of value, money was paid to 
 keep her, and it was by her life and not her death that he would 
 profit. But as for the gratification of his passion, he has not 
 been implicated in the tragedy of guilty passion which runs in 
 this case alongside with the terrible tragedy into which you are 
 inquiring. And is it conceivable that without either of these 
 motives, so far as one can see, without any motive of adequate 
 strength, that he would lend himself to a scheme which would 
 destroy the happiness of his own home, and bring the victim of 
 the crime which they were about to commit in daily and hourly 
 contact with himself, where he could not fail day by day, in the 
 presence of his wife and children, to see the progress of the 
 crime he is supposed to have been committing, and where in 
 that little house there was necessarily either an accomplice or a 
 spy, for there was a servant, upon whose secrecy or upon whose 
 concurrence in the plot the lives of himself and his wife must 
 depend. Surely it is "monstrous to suppose that without motive 
 he should lend himself to a plan so difficult in its execution, so 
 horrible in its progress, so far as he himself is concerned, and so 
 certainly fatal to him in the fact that it must at last, either by 
 the speaking out of the witness, who was present in the house, 
 or by the appearances of the dead when death had been 
 accomplished, have been brought home to him. If this death 
 was actually worked out in that way, if Harriet Staunton in fact 
 was wilfully brought to her death by the deprivation of food 
 in that house, then for days, for more than a month, Patrick 
 Staunton must have had before him every day and every hour, 
 present to his nightly dreams and to bis waking thoughts, a 
 crime which one could scarcely contemplate so long without an 
 unutterable horror, which must surely have turned him from his 
 dreadful purpose. 
 
 Gentlemen, apart from this question of concealment, there are 
 only three matters with which I think I shall have to deal ; 
 starting with the absence of motive there are three sets of 
 evidence in the case upon which I must address you. The 
 evidence against all the prisoners divides itself fairly enough 
 into these three classes. There is the evidence of the state- 
 . ments that the husband and the wife themselves have made ; 
 the direct evidence, which is only that of Clara Brown ; and the 
 evidence of the medical witnesses ; and excluding, as I desire to 
 exclude after what I have said, the question of concealment, 
 and the witnesses who referred to the fact of the lady not being 
 seen about Cudham, I think you will find that the evidence is 
 fairly summarised in the other classes I have mentioned. 
 
 With regard to the statements, of course my learned friends 
 and I feel the responsibility, representing, a.3 we do, the different
 
 38 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 prisoners, of going through the statements, and of seeing how 
 far each prisoner is affected by the statements that were made. 
 There were important conversations, for instance, like the con- 
 versation with Mrs. Chalkland and Dr. Longriggon the night of 
 the 1 2th. At those conversations Louis Staunton and Mrs. 
 Patrick Staunton were present, Patrick was not. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : In the morning you mean. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : Or in the morning. I was thinking of the 
 conversation with Mrs. Chalkland which I think took place that 
 night or the following morning, and Mrs. Chalkland did not see 
 Patrick or have any conversation with him till a quarter to six 
 on this Friday evening 1 . At all events, gentlemen, I was indi- 
 cating that as a conversation, which I may have incidentally to 
 mention in connection with Dr. Longrigg. But so far as Patrick 
 is concerned, the only statements I remember which are con- 
 tained in the case, are first, the account of his conversation with 
 Mrs. Butterfield at the station, when he met her and denied 
 knowing anything of Harriet Staunton (and with that I have 
 dealt in dealing with the question of concealment), and the state- 
 ment which was made to Sergeant Bateman when he went down 
 and made inquiries at Cudham. It is also said that Mr. Patrick 
 went to the hospital with Mrs. Patrick Staunton when the child 
 was taken there, but that he took no part in the conversation, 
 and the witness said that she did not know he was within 
 hearing. It is true that he said something to the doctors at the 
 hospital, describing the child, and it was to be put in evidence, 
 though I do not suppose it would affect your minds upon this 
 question. It is true it was mentioned at the hospital that the 
 wife had nothing to do with it, that the mother was a worthy 
 woman, and that is a statement which is really to a certain 
 extent true concerning Harriet Staunton. I need not make any 
 observation about that. It was not his child as a matter of fact, 
 but there are people who have availed themselves of the magni- 
 ficent charity which the hospital offers and who have availed 
 themselves of it without fair reason. It may be so in this case, 
 but I am not anxious to acquit him of that ; at all events I am 
 confident you would not desire that I should burden you with 
 observations on circumstances which are incidental and upon 
 irrelevant conversations. 
 
 Then, with regard to Sergeant Bateman ; he made a statement 
 to Sergeant Bateman, which I shall ask you to accept and to say 
 was true. He made a statement to Sergeant Bateman that she 
 had been there for some months, and that there was nothing the 
 matter with her except a little brain disease. 
 
 Gentlemen, I think you will find upon the whole evidence of 
 the case that the statement which was made to Sergeant Bate- 
 man vvas a true statement, substantially a true statement, and I
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNl'ON 39 
 
 say substantially because when you have to deal, after my lord 
 has called your attention to it, with the whole of that statement, 
 I think you will find very fair ground for caution before you 
 accept it at all points. One of my learned friends has already 
 spoken of the conduct of Sergeant Bateman in going down and 
 asking questions in the way he did. I cannot imagine how it is 
 allowed that a police constable should go down to persons in 
 this way, that he should call them one by one into a room, 
 should examine and cross-examine them, and then should go 
 and give evidence at the trial, unfortified by any notes which he 
 made at the time, and liable, as was shown to you by the example 
 of Bateman himself, to lapses of memory, which may prevent 
 his repeating matters of the gravest and most vital importance 
 to the prisoners. There was a great case in this court not many 
 years ago, the case of the Lewisham murder, when I remember 
 the then Lord Chief Justice Bovill spoke very strongly indeed 
 with regard to inquiries made by policemen, and reports which 
 they brought as to the statements which had been made to them, 
 and I do ask you to remember this in dealing with the evidence 
 of Sergeant Bateman, that my learned friend, Mr. Straight, in 
 listening to the evidence he gave here, and referring to the notes 
 which had been given before, was able to suggest to him matters 
 of grave importance to Mrs. Patrick Staunton, which he had 
 innocently, I have no doubt, and from the defect of the human 
 memory, left out in his statement here. 
 
 The observation I make is not in any way one of censure. I 
 suppose he took the ordinary course, and you may take it that 
 I do not impute to him any breach of duty. But the ob- 
 servation I make with regard to that brings me naturally to 
 another which I heard made by the Attorney-General himself in 
 the very fair and temperate speech in \\hich he opened this case. 
 He pointed out to you himself, that at Cudham there were only 
 five people in the house who could give direct evidence as to 
 what had taken place there. He pointed out to you that of 
 those five people, four were silenced because they were in the 
 prisoners' dock. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, this trial of course has to be conducted 
 according to the rules of procedure as they at this moment exist. 
 This is not a place to rail against the practice of condemning 
 prisoners to silence, and allowing them to sit in a dock, day 
 after day, as if they were spectators of some highly interesting 
 game, which the counsel on both sides played out with their 
 lives at stake. This is not the place to complain, though one 
 may hope that the day will soon come when something may be 
 done to strike out from our criminal procedure what is its last, 
 remaining barbarism. But I think, so long as the. practice lasts, 
 I am bound to point out to you that in this case the prisoners
 
 40 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 are suffering not only the disadvantages of this practice, but the 
 disadvantages of another practice without having the advantage 
 which would then be given them. It is urged against prisoners 
 being allowed to give evidence on their own behalf that they 
 would be liable to cross-examination ; but these prisoners 
 cannot give evidence though their cross-examination is before 
 you. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : The coroner's duty is not to cross- 
 examine, the Coroner's duty is to say, " What have you to say ? " 
 so that you have both the examination and the cross-examina- 
 tion. That is all that can be elicited from people before the 
 trial. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I have not forgotten that, but I do not think 
 my observation is incorrect. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : I certainly understood that you 
 were going to ask the jury to say that they were cross-examined 
 without the opportunity of saying anything. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : Oh no, my lord. Gentlemen, they were 
 examined by the coroner; the coroner has received information, 
 some information that Dr. Longrigg sends in a letter to him, 
 and with that information he sends Sergeant Bateman down to 
 examine the people at Cudham. He has the information of 
 members of the family, and Mr. Casabianca comes and tells 
 Dr. Longrigg that there has been foul play, and although Mr. 
 Carttar is a gentleman of great experience, and would put 
 questions fairly to these witnesses, you must remember that 
 when he examined them only one of them was represented by 
 counsel, and that counsel was there taking part by courtesy in 
 the proceedings, and though he was allowed the greatest free- 
 dom of counter examining, all these people were cross-examined 
 by Mr. Poland, who is now here as the counsel for the prosecu- 
 tion. I have a right to say, with regard to the prisoner, this is 
 a ground upon which his counsel is entitled to claim that every- 
 thing which is doubtful in the case shall receive an interpretation 
 in his favour. If the fact that he is prevented from giving an 
 explanation is a disadvantage to a prisoner charged with ordinary 
 crime, it is still more the case here where those depositions were 
 taken before the coroner, the examinations and cross-examina- 
 tions are put in evidence here, and when they are combined 
 with the statements which, so far as Sergeant Bateman 
 recollects, were made to him at Cudham, and when the 
 prisoners sit and listen to the performance without being called 
 upon or being able to give their own account. Gentlemen, 
 does not that observation, strong as I submit in any case, 
 become enormously strong in this case, when you consider the 
 position which Clara Brown holds. Of these five people who 
 alone coujd give direct evidence, as \q what took place at
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 41 
 
 Cudham, four are silent in the dock, and one is a perjurer in 
 the v\itness-box ; and upon that evidence and with that 
 evidence you are asked to deal. 
 
 Now, there is a difficulty in dealing on the part of either of 
 the prisoners with the evidence of Clara Brown, and I will tell 
 you frankly what that difficulty is. If one leaves the evidence 
 altogether alone, then one fails to elicit many things which 
 might be truthful and might be strongly in favour of the 
 prisoners. If, on the other hand, one cross-examines fully with 
 regard to the matters with which she has to deal, then one 
 runs the risk of appearing to attribute too much importance to 
 the statement she has made. I ask you first to consider to 
 what extent you have to rely upon that evidence. Before the 
 Coroner, when she was called up into the room to give her 
 evidence, Patrick Staunton had already been examined and 
 cross-examined and was in the room. He could not have 
 communicated with her that day ; he could not possibly have 
 told her the day before the particular questions which my 
 learned friend Mr. Poland, or the Coroner, would be likely to 
 ask ; and the Coroner tells you he has experience in taking such 
 inquiries, and takes care there shall be no interference per- 
 mitted with a witness while he is under examination. Clara 
 Brown goes up to be examined. She receives from the 
 coroner that most solemn warning which I read in cross- 
 examination, when he reminds her that he has taken the 
 evidence of other persons ; he warns her for her own sake to 
 speak the truth ; and the foreman of the jury, with a natural 
 anxiety when this girl is before them that they should get from 
 her exactly what happened, backs that warning with a caution 
 and an encouragement, he himself urging her to speak the 
 truth. Thus, free from interference, thus warned, thus en- 
 couraged, she is questioned as to what she knows, and her 
 answers, if true, establish the innocence of the prisoners at the 
 bar. 
 
 That is one statement. When and under what circum- 
 stances does the other statement come? Why, it comes when 
 she has been in frequent communication with the police con- 
 stable, who is cognizant of the materials in the case, who knows 
 what letters are going to be produced, and who does not 
 hesitate in dealing with that girl to affect her mind by what 
 substantially was a threat, telling her that he had evidence that 
 her story before the Coroner was untrue, and that if she went 
 on in that way she would get herself into trouble, or get herself 
 into prison. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, without discussing at any greater length 
 the circumstances under which that second statement was 
 niade, put the t\yo statements fairly sjde by sjde, and consider
 
 42 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 the circumstances under which they were made, consider the 
 care that was taken in the first statement to induce her fo tell 
 the truth, and then say whether, if that first statement, on oath, 
 speaks in favour of the innocence of the prisoner, and the 
 second statement, handed in as the statement of a witness to 
 be called for the prosecution, speaks of the guilt of the 
 prisoners say whether you for one moment, in a case involving 
 issues of life and death, can rely upon either of those state- 
 ments to the exclusion of the other. Is it not exactly the same 
 as if you found two witnesses, both honest, both with equal 
 opportunities of knowing the truth, both' with the same motives 
 for telling the truth, but telling you precisely contradictory 
 stories ; could you in a case, I will not say where the life but 
 where the liberty of anybody was at stake, could you say when 
 you had the two scales balanced equally, with the same know- 
 ledge, the same motive, for the evidence given under them, 
 could you say that with regard to evidence so equally matched 
 you would believe the one and not believe the other, and would 
 believe the one as justifying you in giving a verdict that 
 would deprive a man of his liberty ? Surely it could not be. 
 And if in Clara Brown's case you find these two statements 
 given under the circumstances I have stated to you, if you find 
 these two statements, which are directly contradictory to each 
 other, can you then, I say, whatever you may think with regard 
 to incidental matters which she may state to you in the course 
 of examination, and which may be in themselves valuable, can 
 you at all events, in any doubtful case, give weight to her 
 testimony so as to make it affect the life or even the liberty of a 
 prisoner who is in your charge. 
 
 Now, my learned friend the Attorney-General most fairly 
 and most generously in his opening speech spoke strongly of 
 Clara Brown's evidence, and he, as representing the prosecu- 
 tion, besought you not to credit that evidence or lean upon it 
 unless you found it corroborated. Gentlemen, let me for one 
 moment ask you what is corroboration in this case? What 
 does corroboration mean ? It means, as I take it, the giving of 
 evidence which supports the same proposition. It does not 
 mean that if one proposition follows another that the second 
 proposition may be called a corroboration of the first. If 
 you had evidence before you that two men might either of 
 them have committed an offence of murder, and you then 
 had a witness called, and a tainted and unbelievable witness, 
 who identified one as having committed the murder, that 
 would not be corroboration. The evidence of that witness 
 would carry the case the whole way. It might be consistent 
 with the innocence of the man who was accused that the 
 original evidence, showing that one of the two did it, was true.
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 43 
 
 In the same way if you found that a man had died, and the 
 question was whether he died from violence or died from a fall, 
 and your doctors came and told you that the appearances were 
 consistent with either hypothesis, and you found an untrust- 
 worthy witness coming forward to say that that man died by 
 violence, that is not corroboration, that is carrying the argu- 
 ment a step further. The first proposition is that the man died 
 either by violence or by an accident, and when you come to 
 the next step, which it is important and necessary to make 
 before you can find a verdict of guilty, the original evidence of 
 science stops short, it is only the evidence of the tainted and 
 uncorroborated witness which would carry you on to the con- 
 clusion that would be fatal to the prisoner. 
 
 Gentlemen, I think I have made that point clear at all events, 
 and I think you understand it. I shall ask you presently, on 
 looking carefully through the evidence of Clara Brown, to say 
 this : that although you would have desired to have her in 
 the box, and if the medical evidence had been clear you 
 would have been glad to know what she said to-day, in order 
 that any doubt upon your mind might have been removed, still, 
 if you find that the medical evidence is in itself not to be acted 
 upon in this case, that then you no more strengthen that 
 evidence by putting the evidence of Clara Brown beside it, 
 than you would make a bridge consisting of a rotten plank 
 stronger by laying another rotten plank by its side, or than you 
 would make a staff to lean upon by tying two broken reeds 
 together. I can quite understand why Clara Brown was called 
 into the witness-box. My learned friend the Attorney- General 
 in the high office which he holds represents in its highest form 
 in this country the administration and the prosecution of 
 criminal justice, and he might well desire, in a case so grave 
 and difficult, that you should have the whole evidence before you 
 for what it is worth. The witnesses, whether they are to be 
 believed or not, at all events should not be kept back. The 
 jury should have this before them and see what they can make 
 out, and I think you will find that although you cannot rely 
 upon the evidence of Clara Brown herself the direct story 
 which she comes to tell there are a great many things in the 
 evidence which she has given, matters of omission as well as 
 of statement, which may very usefully help you to come to a 
 conclusion in this case. 
 
 Now, in the first instance she told the story which was put to 
 her in cross-examination by my learned friend Mr. Williams, a 
 statement of Harriet Staunton having been in pretty good 
 health up to the Monday previous, and of her having been fed 
 as the rest of the family fed, and of her having been fairly 
 attended and just like the other members of the family. The
 
 44 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 whole story I need not go into details, and I cannot do so is 
 in your recollection. Well, what is the story that she tells now? 
 When one examines it carefully it does not come up to a story 
 of habitual starvation and habitual illtreatment. Let me deal 
 with the question of illtreatment for instance. You have heard 
 it put by my learned friend Mr. Straight, and I already for 
 another purpose have mentioned and have adopted his line 
 upon that you have heard it mentioned by him that Patrick 
 Staunton is a man of violent temper. There can be no doubt 
 about it. We have it in evidence that he struck his wife. We have 
 it in evidence that he struck the child. We have it in evidence, if 
 it is to be believed with regard to the child and with regard to 
 the language that he used we have it in evidence that he spoke 
 to Mrs. Harriet Staunton in very foul and abusive language. 
 Mind, that all depends on the evidence of Clara Brown. 
 Entertaining for the moment, accepting for the moment, for 
 the purpose of argument, the statement which she has made, I 
 want to point out this to you, that the very fact that Patrick 
 Staunton was, according to her account, a man of violent temper, 
 is evidence in his favour upon this trial, because she tells you it 
 is a question of the treatment of Harriet Staunton on two 
 occasions. She tells you that on two occasions she saw him 
 strike Harriet Staunton. I, in cross-examination, pressed her 
 to fix the date of those two occasions. On one occasion he 
 struck her on the arm because she complained of not having 
 food enough. On another occasion he is said to have struck 
 her when she had shut the door against his wife, that he had 
 struck her and caused her a black eye, either by a blow with 
 his hand, or, as Clara Brown says, that she had fallen against 
 some article of furniture. Those two occasions are mentioned 
 by Clara Brown as the occasions and the only occasions when 
 she saw Patrick Staunton use any violence to Mrs. Harriet 
 Staunton, and when she is asked to fix the time, she says she can- 
 not remember the exact date, but the second of them was before 
 Mrs. Harriet Staunton went to a solicitor on the 23rd of 
 October. So that you have this uncontemplated piece of evi- 
 dence on the part of Clara Brown, if her story is to be believed 
 at all, that this man of violent temper, either originally party to, 
 or at all events becoming cognisant of the intention to do to 
 death Harriet Staunton for that, you know, is Clara Brown's 
 interpretation of it having that intention and that knowledge, 
 this man of violent temper strikes her and illuses her before she 
 has gone to her solicitor, and at the time when he must have 
 known that she would have the opportunity of complaining of 
 what had been done to her ; and he never uses any violence to 
 her at all from the 23rd of October, when she goes to the 
 solicitor, to the I2th of April, when she is actually taken out of
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTOM A 
 
 the house. So much with regard to the violence of Patrick Staun- 
 ton ; and I submit that the absence of evidence makes Patrick 
 Staunton's violent character a reason for refusing to believe that 
 during those weeks he was lending himself to the deliberate 
 scheme which has been spoken of in this case. Now, with 
 regard to the boots. I mention that because once or twice it has 
 been mentioned in this case. Something was said about Harriet 
 Staunton not wearing boots, and something has been said 
 about the condition of her food. Gentlemen, if you are asked 
 in any way to believe Clara Brown's evidence on the part of the 
 prosecution, at least you will believe her where she is confirmed 
 in her original statement. If you are asked to believe her when 
 she contradicts what she before said upon oath, surely you will 
 believe her where she now corroborates it, and she says that 
 three weeks before Harriet Staunton was taken away to 
 Cudham she had been wearing boots which had been provided 
 for her. There is one matter and only one which I want 
 to mention, and at the same time it is a very important 
 matter. But it depends also upon what weight is to be given to 
 Clara Brown's evidence. Do you remember that Clara Brown 
 was recalled by the Attorney-General, and said with regard to 
 the room in Patrick Staunton's house in which Harriet 
 Staunton slept, and in which Harriet Staunton was condemned to 
 spend a good deal of her time, that there was a fire only once 
 after Christmas. Gentlemen, here is a matter upon which only 
 those five persons can know anything. From Clara Brown you 
 have now got that statement, a statement which shocks and 
 horrifies us all. One could not help it. If that were true, it is 
 one of the worst pieces of evidence in the case ; but you have 
 her giving that statement, which, in their position, they cannot 
 contradict, and giving it here for the first time. Is it pos- 
 sible a thing of that kind escaped her memory? If that is 
 true, if there was no fire in the room, either Harriet Staunton 
 was not kept there during those three weeks, or she would most 
 assuredly have complained of cold and of illtreatment. And 
 when you see what Clara Brown omits and come to compare it 
 with what she says afterwards, you will find ample reason to 
 believe that that story will not do at all. Now, I want to 
 comment upon another part of the evidence. That is the 
 evidence of Clara Brown with respect to the bedroom. From 
 the opening, I do not mean the opening of my learned friend 
 the Attorney-General, but I mean the way in which the case 
 shaped itself, we have assumed Harriet Staunton was kept as a 
 prisoner in the house, that there was some place in which she 
 was confined, and where, separated from any other members of 
 the family, she was allowed to drag out this suffering which 
 ended in her death. But what do you find ? You find that the
 
 46 THE PEMGE CASE 
 
 cottage in which this crime is said to have been committed 
 consisted of four rooms only besides the kitchen. You know 
 that Patrick Staunton and his wife and two children, and the 
 servant, who was in some way related to them, and Mrs. 
 Harriet Staunton and her child all lived there ; and instead of 
 there being a separate room in which she was kept separate 
 from the rest of the family, in which she was allowed to fall into 
 as horrible a condition of filth as possible, it turns out that 
 down to the very last day that Harriet Staunton was at 
 Cudham that room was shared not only by Clara Brown, but 
 also by one of Mrs. Patrick Staunton's children* It is 
 absolutely inconceivable. Surely it is a thing which you would 
 not believe if it came to your hearing without the concurrent 
 testimony of witnesses of undoubted veracity, that Mrs. Patrick 
 Staunton should allow her child to be sleeping night after night 
 in a room which was in the horrible condition of filth in which 
 this room was said to be, and when Clara Brown came to speak 
 of incidental matters with regard to which, perhaps, she had 
 not contemplated being asked, she gave answers which all tend 
 in the same direction. At first she said it was a shocking thing 
 to keep Mrs. Harriet Staunton in this room, with no jug and no 
 washstand. But if Clara Brown was there she must have 
 washed somewhere, and the child must have washed. It might 
 be very inconvenient not to have a washstand in the room, but 
 no doubt, so long as Mrs. Harriet Staunton was capable of 
 getting about the house she would have had to use the 
 downstairs as the others did. She was sleeping in what was, 
 properly, the servant's bedroom ; and the servant took the child 
 down to wash in the washhouse. Where is the importance of 
 there being no jug in the place ? When the policeman 
 describes to you the sort of trestle bed with no furniture to it, a 
 sketch was brought of it, with the chintz furniture to it. What 
 says Clara Brown ? " It is true that the furniture was not there, 
 because when Mrs. Harriet Staunton was removed I took it 
 down to wash it." It does not suggest itself to her mind that 
 the room was neglected, because she says " I cleaned the room 
 myself about three weeks before Mrs. Harriet Staunton was 
 taken away." On the loth of May the police-sergeant goes to 
 Cudham and goes into that room, and he says it looked as if it 
 had not been cleaned for a month, and it had not been cleaned 
 for several weeks. It had been occupied for three weeks, and for 
 the other month it had not been occupied and had not been 
 cleaned. So that the sergeant's evidence corresponds with 
 Clara Brown's that there was no neglect as to cleaning the 
 room. But it happened that when Harriet Staunton was taken 
 away that it was three weeks since she had cleaned the room. 
 Now I come to one or two other little matters. Do you
 
 DEPEtfCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 4? 
 
 remember the statement about Mrs. Harriet Staunton not 
 coming down to breakfast ? Patrick Staunton was complaining 
 of Mrs. Harriet Staunton not coming down to breakfast. 
 Patrick Staunton you find calling upon her to come down to 
 her meals. What about the hair? I shall have to say 
 something about it presently. What about the hair ? Mrs. 
 Harriet Staunton used to attend to her own hair. "And I have 
 heard Mrs. Patrick Staunton complain to her that she did not 
 keep it in good condition." Well, now, instead of that neglect 
 and misery and filth in that little dungeon room, which is the 
 sort of idea pressed upon the public, she was sleeping in the 
 room occupied by the servant and child. It was cleaned in the 
 ordinary way. She was reminded about getting her hair tidy, 
 and that is exactly what you would expect to find in a mother 
 whose child was sharing that room night after night. How 
 about the bedstead? It was suggested by the police-sergeant 
 that the furniture was in a wretched condition. What do we 
 find about the bedstead ? When Harriet Staunton first went 
 there she slept with Clara Brown upon the chair bedstead in 
 the room. Afterwards a change was made. One does not 
 know why. Possibly Harriet Staunton preferred to sleep alone 
 instead of sleeping with a servant, and to have a smaller bed ; 
 but at all events a change was made after a time, and Harriet 
 slept in one bed and Clara Brown and the child in the other. 
 What was this smaller bed that Harriet Staunton slept in ? 
 Why, it was a bedstead that Patrick Staunton himself had slept 
 in frequently before on the occasion that Alice Rhodes was 
 staying at the house, for you hear when Alice Rhodes was 
 staying there he used to take that chair bedstead out into the 
 kitchen or to the landing, having only two bedrooms in the 
 house, and he used to sleep on the chair bedstead which Mrs. 
 Harriet Staunton afterwards slept on. 
 
 With regard to the cleaning of the room, with regard to the 
 hair, with regard to the washstand, with regard to the bedstead, 
 and with regard to the furniture of the bed, has not the whole 
 statement disappeared ? And does not the condition of things, 
 as you get them incidentally admitted by Clara Brown, go 
 strongly to refute the whole story which has been put before 
 you ; for this reason, Clara Brown's story, to my mind, is not so 
 important for what she says, as for what she does not say. If 
 you are asked to believe that whether wilfully or by negligence 
 this poor woman was starved while she was in the house at 
 Cudham, and to believe that that process went on for a con- 
 siderable time, what would you expect to find from Clara 
 Brown ? Would not you expect to hear that Harriet Staunton 
 had been begging Clara Brown to get her food ? Would you 
 not expect to hear of her trying to escape, and would you not
 
 48 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 expect to hear of Clara Brown herself helping her and giving 
 her food when Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Staunton were away from 
 the house ? There is not in Clara Brown's evidence a syllable 
 about Mrs. Harriet Staunton complaining of hunger, except 
 that statement that she occasionally complained of not having 
 enough, and that occasional complaint of not having enough, 
 as if it happened only now and then. There is no trace of any 
 such complaint or of any such attempt to escape ; nor is there 
 and I ask you, if you please, especially to remember this, because 
 it is important with regard to what the medical evidence states 
 there is not a word from Clara Brown of any complaint by 
 Harriet Staunton of pain or suffering, or any request by her that 
 a doctor may be called upon to attend her. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, bearing in mind that evidence given by 
 Clara Brown, which I now pass over with those observations, 
 asking you to look at the evidence to which you are referred, 
 it is conceded that Clara Brown's evidence, so far as it is un- 
 corroborated, is not evidence upon which you would act in this 
 case. You have not been so warned by me but by the prosecu- 
 tion in this case. I have asked you to carefully consider as a 
 matter of logic where corroboration begins and what you 
 strictly can call corroboration ; and when you have heard Clara 
 Brown's evidence and considered how that evidence broke 
 away under your feet at every step, you are thrown back upon 
 the medical evidence in this case, and I must come to the 
 evidence which Mr. Longrigg gave with regard to the matters 
 which were before him in life, and also in the post-mortem 
 examination. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, upon this point there is a conflict of evidence 
 before you. It has been my duty in this case (and my learned 
 friends have confided it, somewhat too trustfully perhaps, to me) 
 to deal with the medical evidence in the case, and to the best of 
 my ability I have endeavoured to grapple with the questions 
 which have arisen ; and I now want to point out to you the 
 inferences which have been drawn from the appearances in life 
 and from the post-mortem examination, and to prove to you, 
 not on the evidence of the witness I have called, but upon 
 the admission of the doctors who have given evidence for the 
 prosecution in this case, that the examination and the record 
 of the examination are imperfect, and that the inferences are in- 
 conclusive and untrustworthy. 
 
 I deal first with the evidence of Mr. Longrigg. He is consulted 
 about the patient, he is told that the lady is very ill ; and here I 
 must for a moment refer to a statement in the conversation with 
 him. He says it is only a matter of recollection on his part 
 there is no note of it he says that when he was talking to 
 Louis Staunton and Mrs. Patrick Staunton they told him that a
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 49 
 
 doctor had been attending her, and that he asked the name and 
 was told Dr. Creasy, and on suggesting it was Dr. Creasy of 
 Gravesend, he was told no, it was Dr. Creasy of Braisted. 
 There was a Dr. Creasy at Braisted, so that to that extent, if 
 they were desiring to conceal anything from Mr. Longrigg, they 
 took the worst course : they gave the name and address of the 
 doctor, where he could be found and actual inquiries made. 
 
 That is his recollection, and if it is accurate with regard to 
 that conversation it is very important. There were two persons 
 who were present with him during the conversation. It is so 
 important that he had to be pressed with regard to the exact 
 words spoken, and he said in cross-examination he could not 
 state the exact words which were spoken in that conversation. 
 Now, gentlemen, in the report of a conversation of this kind, 
 everything depends on the exactness of his recollection. The 
 mere form of the sentence, the mere form of the question as he 
 addressed it to one of these people, would make the whole 
 difference between on the one hand a true statement of that 
 which had taken place, and on the other a falsehood, or w hat 
 you might consider as a falsehood designed to lead him off the 
 scent and prevent investigation. He was speaking to these two 
 persons,. he wanted to ask them a question about the doctor; 
 he tells you he cannot recollect the exact words he used. He 
 asked if a doctor had been attending her and they said " Yes." 
 Is the answer untrue? If he asked them (and is it not the 
 usual form of a medical question ?) Have you a doctor there ? 
 and they said "Yes" it would be true. Upon that small 
 difference in the exact words in which the question was put by 
 Mr. Longrigg depends the whole difference between the truth 
 or the falsehood of that statement, and let me just say that 
 what immediately follows in that conversation is an almost con- 
 clusive indication that Dr. Longrigg's memory is failing him, 
 and what was really said was "Have you a medical man?" 
 because they tell him that she has been only ill for a few days, 
 and they tell him that this doctor lives seven or eight miles oti. 
 Is it not a great deal more likely that the statement by them 
 was "We have a doctor, and he is not attending, for he lives 
 seven or eight miles off" than that they told him he had been 
 attending and went on to say that the doctor lived seven or 
 eight miles off. What was Dr. Longrigg's impression of the 
 matter immediately after? He is speaking now from imperfect 
 recollection, but what was his impression immediately after- 
 wards ? Why, gentlemen, surely his impression must have 
 been that there had not been a doctor attending her, for this 
 reason : he treats the case he does not ask to send for the 
 doctor he treats the case, he does not ask anything about the 
 treatment. One would think if he was told that a doctor had
 
 50 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 been attending he would have asked what medicine had been 
 taken, and " Did you give her stimulants or anything of that 
 kind?" He does not ask anything of that kind ; but there is 
 something more than that, he attends the case, and within a few 
 hours, apparently, the patient dies. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : When he had that conversation with 
 the medical man he had not seen the patient. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE: When he had that conversation he had not 
 seen the patient, but he attends the case, and in a comparatively 
 few hours the patient dies. If he believed that the medical man 
 at Cudham had been attending that lady, is it conceivable that 
 a man exercising ordinary care, having seen so little of the 
 patient as he had, having had so few opportunities of testing the 
 cause or the nature of the disease, is it conceivable that he 
 would give a medical certificate without taking the ordinary 
 precaution of writing to the other medical attendant, to inquire 
 what the former symptoms had been ? No. Not only that but 
 when he gave the certificate, and Casabianca comes and tells 
 him there is foul play, it does not seem to occur to him then 
 to communicate with Dr. Creasy with regard to the matter. 
 
 Gentlemen, I hope I do not seem to be labouring this point 
 too much. That conversation is an important one in this most 
 important respect. From that conversation and from the exact 
 form of this answer is there not a reason, as well as from the 
 account of what else was said, to doubt the accuracy of Dr. 
 Longrigg's memory, and to believe that the question really 
 asked was the question, " Have you a medical man ?" and that 
 the answer to that question was truly answered by the statement 
 that Dr. Creasy lived at Braisted, but with the explanation that 
 as he lived some miles off they brought the patient up to 
 London. 
 
 And what was the conduct of the people who bring the 
 patient there? Directly they get to the place they go twice 
 that night to urge Mr. Longrigg to come. I am not going to 
 say anything in the way of censure upon Mr. Longrigg for not 
 going that night. Certainly it occurred to one, as the house 
 was little more than a quarter of a mile from his own house, 
 and as it was a case in which, so to speak, he was retained, as 
 the people had been twice in the course of the night to tell him 
 that the lady was worse, and to beg him to come as soon as he 
 came in, it did occur to one that whenever he came in, what- 
 ever time of night it was, it would have been a reasonable thing 
 for him to have gone those few hundred yards to see how the 
 lady was. However, he did not. The next morning he went, 
 and the next morning undoubtedly this poor lady was beyond 
 the reach of medical aid. But there is one important piece of 
 evidence that he gave you in favour of the prisoners. He says
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 51 
 
 " I noticed nothing in the appearances inconsistent with their 
 account. I noticed nothing in their behaviour which was in the 
 least suspicious. I noticed nothing about the patient herself, or 
 the behaviour of the people around her which gave me any cause 
 to suspect at all." He came to a conclusion he fairly enough 
 defends to a certain extent, and I am not here to dispute it. There 
 was truth in the certificate that he gave, but then came Mr. 
 Casabianca. Air. Casablanca gave him a history which we 
 know may have been a romantic one, probably it was a very 
 serious one, of the members of the family to which the deceased 
 lady belonged. Mr. Casabianca told him that there was foul 
 play, and upon that Mr. Longrigg was led to another conclusion. 
 His first conclusion was stated in the certificate ; his second 
 conclusion was narcotic poison, because he tells you that 
 directly he was told that there was foul play, the symptoms 
 which he observed during life were of course present to his 
 mind, and he formed the opinion of narcotic poison. Upon 
 that a post-mortem examination was ordered, and a post-mortem 
 examination took place. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, upon the accuracy and completeness of that 
 post-mortem examination very much indeed depends. Who 
 conducted it ? Mr. Longrigg. He examined the viscera, I think, 
 and he examined the brain. Mr. Wilkinson also examined the 
 brain. Who recorded it ? Curiously enough in the first instance, 
 Mr. Longrigg, who was the responsible person in the case, and 
 who took notes, who was the principal therefore, practically 
 having attended the patient. He took notes in a little book of his 
 own a private memorandum book. He may have filled, I 
 think he says, two and a half pages, or something of that kind 
 in this book, but all the notes that he took at the post-mortem 
 examination were contained in that memorandum book, and 
 that book unfortunately is lost. The notes which we have now, 
 and which we know as Dr. Longrigg's note?, are notes that he 
 made afterwards with regard to the appearances that he had 
 observed. Well now, was that post-mortem examination a 
 complete one? It is perfectly clear that it was not. That, by 
 the confession of the doctors who have been called upon the 
 other side, was not the case. The brain was not weighed, the 
 urine was not tested, the supra-renal capsules were not examined, 
 the microscope, and perhaps this is the most important of all, 
 was never used. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, how can we explain this ? How is it that 
 the three or four doctors of some experience in the matter going 
 to look at this body and to study the appearances presented by 
 it, how is it that they allowed a post-mortem examination to 
 remain so incomplete ? Is not the answer obvious that in the 
 early stages of the post-mortem examination they were, I /won't
 
 52 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 say directed to a conclusion, but were led to entertain a belief 
 which, so to speak, threw them off the scent ? Early in the 
 post-mortem examination they found redness of the intestines, 
 and upon that the theory was suggested to Mr. Longrigg and 
 to the other medical man who was conducting the post-mortem 
 examination, that although there may have been poison it was 
 not a narcotic poison such as Mr. Longrigg inferred from the 
 symptoms during life, but that it was an irritant poison which 
 would have effect in that way upon the coating of the intestines, 
 and upon that, discussing the matter amongst themselves, having 
 that suggestion presented to their minds, for I will put it no 
 stronger than that, their examination, like the examination of Dr. 
 Rogers when the matters were submitted to him afterwards, 
 was an examination directed to the presence of poison. If it 
 had not been so is it not obvious, gentlemen, that they would 
 have filled up the gaps that I have pointed out in this medical 
 examination ? Were there not appearances there which should 
 have led to further examination ? My learned friend, the 
 Attorney-General, called one witness who was not present at 
 the post-mortem examination, and a witness whose ability, I 
 suppose, is known to all who are practising in this court. Mr. 
 Bond was called into the witness-box, and gave certain evidence 
 in regard to this matter, and in cross-examination do you re- 
 member what Mr. Bond said with regard to this post-mortem 
 examination ? He admits that it was incomplete, and the 
 evidence which he gave points to two at all events special 
 evidences of this incompleteness. Mr. Bond tells you this. 
 " There are two diseases which cause a bronze skin." He 
 says, " I know of no other disease which causes a bronze 
 skin. In diabetes the skin is slightly bronzed. In Addison's 
 disease the skin is a great deal more bronzed, and therefore 
 if I find a bronzing of the skin that would lead me to the 
 suspicion that either diabetes or Addison's disease might be 
 present." 
 
 Now, supposing that to be so. In this case there was a 
 bronzing. Mr. Longrigg says, "The skin was bronzing." Then 
 that would lead to the inference that one of those two dis- 
 eases was present, and with regard to each one of those diseases 
 there is only one unmistakable symptom to be discovered after 
 death. In the case of diabetes that one unmistakable symptom 
 is the presence of sugar in the urine. With regard to Addison's 
 disease, the one unmistakable sympton is the condition of the 
 supra-renal capsules. I asked the doctors with regard to this 
 post-mortem examination: "Did you rind urine?" "Yes." 
 " Did you test it?" "No, there were three ounces of it and it 
 was not tested." " Did you examine the supra-renal capsules ?" 
 " No, they were overlooked." There was the indication on the 
 appearance of the body that one of those two diseases might
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTOtt 53 
 
 probably be present, and with the opportunity of making sure 
 of that fact with regard to each of them by an appearance which 
 they could easily have tested, they did not test either. Is not 
 that one explanation, the explanation that I have suggested to 
 you, that their minds had already gone off on the suspicion of 
 poison, and that with that view in their minds it did not occur 
 to them to follow up the other evidences that were present before 
 them. 
 
 But this is still more important according to the view of the 
 case which I have ventured to take. There is a still more 
 important omission upon their part, and that is the omission of 
 the use of the microscope. They find in the lungs a certain 
 amount of tubercular deposit. They find in the meshes of the 
 pia mater a certain number of granules or miliary tubercles, 
 tubercles which connect themselves with tubercular disease, and 
 connect themselves either with a chronic state of disease, 
 tuberculosis, which would be acute and general, or with the 
 local disease, meningitis. Now, these indications are found in 
 the brain, and the doctors who were called on behalf of the 
 prosecution say that they did not attach much importance to 
 these tubercles on the brain, they were not sufficient in quantity 
 and they were not in the right position. Some of them seemed 
 to consider that the important point was that there was not 
 enough of these tubercular substances ; another, Mr. Wilkin- 
 son, I think it was, seems to think that they were not important 
 because they were not at the base of the brain. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, of course, the very important question for 
 you is, not whether it is proved that the death of this lady was 
 caused by any of the diseases I have mentioned, but whether 
 her death, with the symptoms I have described, is consistent 
 with her having died of one of those diseases ; because I am 
 quite sure you would demand, before you acted upon it to the 
 prejudice of the prisoners, that the medical evidence given before 
 you should be consistent wit|h the hypothesis of their guilt, and 
 with that hypothesis only. If you find that all these appear- 
 ances here are consistent with her having died from a fatal 
 disease, a disease not necessarily produced by privation of food, 
 then surely you could not be asked to say that you were satisfied 
 that the crime of murder had been committed by the wilful 
 deprivation of food. 
 
 Well, now, how about this disease? What do we hear ? In 
 the first place these doctors, one or two of them who have given 
 their evidence on the part of the prosecution, I suppose now 
 must admit themselves to have been mistaken, after the 
 authority, the great authority, which has been produced in this 
 case with regard to the question of tubercular meningitis and 
 tubercular disease. Mr. Longrigg and Dr. Bright would 
 probably hardly persist in the evidence which they have given,
 
 54 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 and which has been contradicted. I asked Mr. Longrigg 
 whether there was any sign in the appearances which he noticed 
 which was inconsistent with the symptoms occurring from 
 tubercular meningitis, and he mentions one, he mentions the 
 rigidity of the arm as the symptom which shows him that it is 
 not tubercular meningitis. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : I think you are mistaken. 
 f Mr. CLARKE : It is so really. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : I think he mentioned paralysis. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : My lord will correct me by-and-by, if I am 
 wrong. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : I have carefully abstained. I keep 
 silent. I do so, not because I assent to everything. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I quite understand that, my lord. Of course, 
 gentlemen, I am speaking under my lord's correction. There 
 is my lord's note. One of my friends has been kind enough to 
 take a note for me and this is what he has : " Considering the 
 rigidity of the muscles of the upper extremity, tuberculosis was 
 not sufficiently established. If it had been established, it might 
 have caused the other symptoms." That is Mr. Longrigg's 
 statement that if tuberculosis had been sufficiently established, 
 it might have caused all the symptoms except the rigidity of the 
 arm. That was, at all events in my mind to ask him, and I 
 believe I did ask him, and that is on the note. 
 
 Thus Mr. Longrigg stated that the rigidity of the arm was 
 inconsistent with tuberculosis. We have called witnesses in the 
 box to put the matter beyond a doubt, referring not merely to 
 their own experience but to their knowledge, the high scientific 
 knowledge of Dr. Payne and Dr. Bristowe. They are the 
 authorities for the proposition that so far from its being incon- 
 sistent with tuberculosis, it is one of the consequences and 
 frequent signs. 
 
 Now take the other suggestion, that because these tubercles 
 were not at the base of the brain, therefore they could not 
 have produced the disease and produced the emaciation 
 which existed. Gentlemen, the answer to this is the evi- 
 dence of Dr. Payne, evidence which is endorsed by the 
 authority of Dr. Bristowe, and is of the greatest importance. I 
 asked Dr. Bright, you will remember, in cross-examination, 
 with regard to the symptoms that he saw whether those were 
 not consistent with tubercular disease and with being caused by 
 that tubercular disease. He said : " No, there were other 
 appearances that one would have found namely, tubercles at 
 the base of the brain, flattening and bulging of the lobes of the 
 brain, and effusion into the ventricles." Now then, I ask Dr. 
 Payne, and his opinion is supported by Dr. Bristowe, and he 
 said : " It is quite possible to have the disease produced with- 
 out having tubercles at the base of the brain, that would pro-
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 55 
 
 duce the appearances which Dr. Bright conceived should have 
 been presented if the disease was there at all ; but in the 
 absence of tubercles at the base of the brain those appearances 
 will not be presented, and yet there will be the tubercular menin- 
 gitis which would cause the emaciation and the death." There- 
 fore, upon those points the differentia indicated by these doctors, 
 as showing that it was not tubercular meningitis, are proved by 
 the evidence which is before you to be perfectly consistent with 
 that disease. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there is another important part of the 
 evidence, and it is this there is evidence of appearances in the 
 body which are inconsistent with death being the result of starva- 
 tion only, and that is the inflammation of the peritoneum, and 
 upon that point did not the evidence of Mr. Payne, given in the 
 witness-box yesterday, make you regret that there had not been 
 more care in this post-mortem examination, and a more care- 
 ful resort to the appliances of science to solve the difficult 
 question ? Dr. Payne says : '' I cannot explain the presence 
 of the appearances of inflammation of the peritoneum unless 
 in fact it was caused, as it might have been, by tubercular 
 deposit not to be detected by the naked eye but yielding to 
 the examination of the microscope." And Dr. Payne says 
 this further, which is of the greatest importance : " If I find the 
 existence of tubercles in the brain discoverable by the naked 
 eye, I should consider it probable that in the other organs of 
 the body I should, by microscopic examination, be able to dis- 
 cover further marks of tubercular deposit." 
 
 What then was the condition of the body ? There is one 
 matter that I must mention before I sum it up, and that is the 
 state of the brain. This is very important. In cases of starva- 
 tion Mr. Longrigg admitted that the brain was pale. In this 
 case it was not pale. Mr. Wilkinson says that in cases of 
 tubercular disease he should not expect to find the rest of the 
 brain healthy ; but Dr. Payne, backed again by Mr. Bristowe 
 who endorses that medical opinion, and supported by medical 
 authority beyond and apart from his own experience, says : 
 " There are cases in which the disease does exist and in its 
 fatal form, and yet the residue of the brain would be found 
 healthy." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, what was the fact ? In examining this 
 body they found tubercles in the meshes of the pia mater in 
 the brain. Let them look further and see whether those 
 tubercles were matters to which no importance was to be 
 attached, or whether the presence of tubercles in another part 
 of the system showed that there was great importance to be 
 attached to it. Looking further you find a patch of tubercular 
 deposit on one of the lungs, and although they found it, although 
 there were these tubercles in the brain, and this tubercular
 
 56 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 deposit on the lungs that must have guided them to the Sus- 
 picion of disease, they did not call to their aid the microscope 
 which might have enabled them to detect, at the base of the 
 brain or on the coating of the peritoneum, the still further and 
 conclusive evidence of the presence of the tubercular meningitis 
 which might have produced this death. 
 
 But, gentlemen, there are two more matters with regard to 
 which the evidence of Mr. Longrigg and the other doctors 
 is of great importance. In cross-examining Mr. Longrigg I 
 hope I did not seem unfair to him for a moment. Cer- 
 tainly there was no intention on my part to be unfair to him 
 with regard to the notes that he took, and I think you will bear 
 me witness, directly he complained of the matter, I was only 
 too glad that the notes should be in his hands, and that he 
 should have an opportunity of examining them. But there was 
 an important question, and important to put in a particular way ; 
 and in cross-examination one exhausts the recollection of a 
 witness before helping it, in order to test it, and I asked him, 
 " Have you told us everything that you noticed with regard to 
 the coating of the stomach?" He said distinctly, "Yes." Then 
 I asked him, " Did you make a note of it ? " " No, I did not." 
 He examined his notes and there was no trace of it. Another 
 of the doctors was asked solely about the thinning of the coats 
 of the stomach ; but Mr. Longrigg admits that there are two 
 indications, almost necessary indications, of death by starvation : 
 one is the thinning of the coat of the stomach, and that the 
 doctors never noticed and never noted. If Mr. Longrigg did 
 notice it himself, or noticed something which he thought was 
 thinning, he made no note of it. The other inevitable symptom 
 is the paleness of the brain, and in this case the brain was not 
 pale at all. With respect to the thinness of the coating of the 
 stomach and the paleness of the brain, you have the absence 
 of both these invariable symptoms. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : Who proved that paleness of the 
 brain was a symptom ? 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I believe I examined Mr. Longrigg about it. 
 I think you will find I am right. He said, " It was neither pale 
 nor wasted." 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : I do not say that was not stated, 
 but who proved that it was a symptom of starvation ? 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : The same witness that I asked. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : It is not so, I think. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : He says, " I expect to find it pale in cases of 
 starvation." 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : Who are you alluding to? 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : Mr. Longrigg. In my cross-examination he 
 says, "the brain was neither pale nor wasted. I should expect 
 to find it pale, but not wasted."
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 57 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : If that was the note, so be it. 
 We hear nothing of that kind from Mr. Payne. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : Gentlemen, the point that I was upon, and I 
 am quite satisfied now by the notes of my learned friend that I 
 was right about the statement that I made the point that I was 
 upon was this, that by the evidence of the doctors who were 
 called by the prosecution, there are two symptoms of starvation; 
 one is the thinness of the coating of the stomach, the other 
 paleness of the brain ; and in this case, so far as the other 
 doctors beside Dr. Longrigg were concerned, there was no thin- 
 ness of the coating of the stomach. And he only admits that 
 thinness when it was suggested to him, although he made no 
 memorandum in his notes, and although he had already said 
 that he had told us all that he remembered about the condition 
 of the stomach. He admits that he said the organs, with the 
 exception of the lungs, were in a healthy condition. Then, 
 gentlemen, if you get two symptoms that would be there in 
 starvation, they are absent. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : Not that they of necessity would be 
 there, Mr. Clarke, in all cases of starvation. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : Well, my lord, they would expect to find it. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : I mean to say Addison's disease has 
 the bronzing of the skin as in diabetes ; it is not an essential. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I am quite content. If there is one thing that 
 I am anxious about in this case, it is that I should not overstate 
 or exaggerate propositions which are not so familiar to me as 
 they are to the gentlemen who have been in the witness-box, but 
 which are very important for your consideration in the case. At 
 all events there are two symptoms one would expect to find in 
 starvation, and neither of them is mentioned in the record of the 
 post-mortem examination. There is the symptom of the 
 inflammation of the peritoneum, which you would not expect to 
 find in cases of starvation, and which you do find here. There 
 is something more. Mr. Payne was examined with regard to 
 the matters which were found, and which he thinks were incon- 
 sistent with death from starvation only ; and I want to call your 
 attention to the evidence that he has given in the cross-exami- 
 nation to which he was subjected. 
 
 Mr. Payne says that the rigidity of the arms would not be 
 caused by starvation alone. He says that congestion of the 
 stomach and congestion of the brain would not be caused by 
 starvation alone. My learned friend, the Attorney- General, in 
 cross-examination, suggested to him two matters, one the matter 
 of a person dying in convulsions. Now, ?o far as I know, there 
 is no evidence in this case of any convulsion prior to death. So 
 far as I know, the symptoms which Mr. Longrigg noticed with 
 regard to the dilatation of the pupils and the stertorous breathing, 
 the head symptoms, as I may call them, were symptoms noticed
 
 $8 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 by him actually some time before the patient died. Then 
 another question I won't call it far-fetched, that would be 
 disrespectful, but it was certainly a question I did not expect to 
 hear put to Mr. Payne ; it was this, " Don't you know that in 
 cases of shipwrecked sailors who have become maniacs, and 
 have died, that the brain is congested ? " One would not sup- 
 pose that anybody has had any very long experience of 
 shipwrecked sailors who died maniacs, from absence of food 
 and of drink, and there is no evidence in this case, from 
 beginning to end, that the privation, if there were privation, to 
 which this lady may have been subjected, assuming for a 
 moment the suggestion of the prosecution to be true, there is no 
 suggestion of any maniacal excitement or convulsion, or any- 
 thing of the kind. Mr. Payne gave important evidence. He 
 told you he had read the depositions. He had read the notes of 
 the post-mortem examination. He had sat here and listened to 
 the examination and cross-examination of the doctors who had 
 been called into the box, and he gives you his opinion that the 
 deceased was killed by tubercular meningitis. He gave you his 
 experience that this tubercular disease had for one of its 
 frequent and early symptoms the slow and gradual emaciation, 
 and an emaciation which is unaccompanied by any other sign of 
 disease. 
 
 Now, of Mr. Payne's eminence in his profession one need not, 
 I think, speak. The less necessity is there for my doing so, 
 because in a curious and remarkable way he was corroborated 
 by evidence to which the Attorney- General himself appealed. 
 It is the Attorney-General's own witness in one sense that I 
 next call into the witness-box, in order to test the accuracy of 
 Mr. Payne's evidence with regard to these symptoms of obscure 
 diseases. My learned friend had had handed to him, I suppose 
 by the scientific gentlemen who are instructing him in dealing 
 with this case, a book, as a book of authority, upon which he 
 might rely, and by which he might test evidence. It was Dr. 
 Bristowe's book, and in cross-examination he puts that to Mr. 
 Payne. He seeks to modify Mr. Payne's evidence by appealing 
 to the dicta which he finds in Dr. Bristowe's book, and Mr. 
 Payne admits that Dr. Bristowe's book is acknowledged to be a 
 high authority, and that Dr. Bristowe himself is one of the 
 highest living authorities upon these subjects, It must be so, 
 because my friend has used it as an authority. It so happens, 
 that I have the good fortune of Dr. Bristowe's personal ac- 
 quaintance, and it so happened that Dr. Bristowe, having nothing 
 whatever to do with this case, and dealing simply with me as a 
 private friend, made a communication to me, and at the moment 
 when Mr. Payne was challenged with that book, and referred 
 to Dr. Bristowe's authority, Dr. Bristowe himself was sitting 
 here.
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 59 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : You really must not state anything 
 that he has not stated. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : But he has stated it, my lord. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : I mean you must not state what he 
 has stated to you. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I am not doing that. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE HAWKINS : You said something about his being 
 a private friend. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I am only stating what Dr. Bristowe stated in 
 the witness-box, that he had not been retained in this case, and 
 had no communication with the other gentlemen in the case. 
 It was in consequence of a private letter to me that he was 
 here. At all events, at the moment when his authority was 
 appealed to and my friend called it a high authority he was 
 here, and he was in the witness-box yesterday. He indorsed 
 the opinion which Mr. Payne had expressed, and he indorsed it 
 in the answer to the questions of the learned Attorney-General, 
 saying that he felt confirmed by that opinion in the judgment 
 that he had formed with regard to this case. 
 
 Gentlemen, upon that point have I not produced to you 
 evidence which is worthy of consideration, and worthy of 
 respect ? The matters with which you are dealing in this case 
 are matters with which Mr. Longrigg may well be forgiven for 
 not being very conversant. A general practitioner at Penge, 
 however able he may be, however good his practice may be, 
 cannot be supposed to have that knowledge of the most recent 
 results of scientific investigation which belongs to gentlemen 
 who occupy the position of those whom I called into the 
 witness-box yesterday. I am not asking you to find, affirma- 
 tively, a verdict as to the disease which caused this lady's 
 death. I am quite aware that with regard to one of the 
 diseases mentioned diabetes my learned friend, the Attorney- 
 General, may put that out of view, because I am quite aware 
 that disease would bring with it a symptom during life which 
 could not be mistaken, and which would easily have been 
 noticed. But it is only necessary for me to show, as I hope 
 and believe I have shown upon the evidence that I have given 
 before you, that the symptoms which were observed during life 
 or on the post-mortem examination were consistent with death 
 from a disease which produces gradual and great emaciation, 
 which is ultimately fatal, but fatal after being in its acute 
 form possibly for only a few days, and the history of which 
 disease is therefore consistent, not merely with the appear- 
 ances during life and the post-mortem examination after death, 
 but consistent and this is all-important to me with the 
 account that the prisoners themselves have given of the con- 
 dition that Harriet Staunton was in whilst she was remaining 
 at Cudham.
 
 60 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 Gentlemen, if this was a case of tubercular disease, assuming 
 on the Monday this acute form, there is an explanation of the 
 whole of the symptoms that have been stated and the gradual 
 emaciation going on. And here let me call your mind for at 
 this moment it seems to me of the greatest possible importance 
 here let me call your minds to the observation I made with 
 regard to one thing that you do not find in the course of this 
 evidence. You do not find any complaint of suffering or any 
 complaints of disease. These scientific men tell you that one of 
 the symptoms of this tubercular disease is that preceding it 
 there may be a long period of gradual wasting leading to very 
 great emaciation. Dr. Bristowe vouched for having seen cases 
 in which the emaciation was as great as it was in this case, 
 the disease having no symptom other than this slow and 
 gradual emaciation. Now, if during the two or three months 
 that had preceded this lady's removal from Cudham she 
 had been gradually becoming emaciated without any painful 
 symptom to herself, without any other symptom noticeable 
 by the persons in the house, no symptom other than the gradual 
 wasting of her frame ; if this disease became acute on the 
 Monday that she was removed to Penge, you find then that 
 the account of the prisoners is consistent with the current 
 of the disease, and you find that when you come into the 
 presence of medical science every symptom of the brain and on 
 the body, which after death is observed in the patient, is 
 consistent with the presence of this disease. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I confess I hope and believe that this 
 evidence puts it beyond a doubt that you will refuse to return a 
 a verdict of wilful murder, based upon the idea that Harriet 
 Staunton was wilfully and systematically starved. When you 
 recall the way in which you are asked to believe Clara Brown 
 only if she is corroborated, is there not force to all of you in the 
 observation I venture to make, that although, if the medical 
 evidence were clear and decisive, it would be a satisfaction to 
 your minds to have seen Clara Brown in the witness-box, and 
 have heard her story, for what it is worth, given out before you, 
 that if you found reason for doubt and hesitation upon the 
 medical evidence, the value of Clara Brown's evidence is gone 
 altogether. If the medical evidence is consistent with either of 
 the two hypotheses, the one hypothesis the hypothesis of 
 innocence, the other the hypothesis of guilt, I am quite sure you 
 would never allow the evidence of Clara Brown to force you to 
 accept the hypothesis which is inconsistent with the innocence 
 of every prisoner at the bar. But I think it carries it a little 
 further than that. I am not content to challenge your verdict 
 with regard to the question of murder or not murder. I do not 
 repeat any of the definitions or endeavour to repeat any of the 
 definitions of the different stages or different forms of the crime
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 61 
 
 which will be laid down to you by my lord. I think my lord 
 will quite understand that while I am anxious to deal fully with 
 the facts, I do not think it part of my duty to put before you 
 propositions of law when those propositions of law will come 
 with the fullest authority to you from the Bench. But I do say, 
 that I am carried a step further here. It is suggested that 
 there was manslaughter at all events in this case, that there was 
 the neglect to provide the medical attendance and the comforts 
 which the prisoners, I suppose it will be suggested, must have 
 seen were needed, and which they ought to have provided. 
 The medical attendance is the only thing which presses upon 
 me with regard to that matter, for as to the question of the 
 comforts that entirely depends upon the evidence of Clara 
 Brown, and to that extent I am content to leave it. But with 
 regard to the medical attendance, is there not an explanation, 
 and a reasonable and fair explanation, in that medical evidence 
 to which I have just called your attention ? 
 
 Gentlemen, it is not a mistake, it is not an act of carelessness 
 which the hiw brands as a crime and would punish, for the law is 
 not so inhuman. The delay that a father weeps for when his child 
 is gone, and when he thinks and thinks in the bitterness of his 
 sorrow, that if he had gone a little sooner, if he had called the 
 doctor earlier, if he had wrapped the child up and taken it to a 
 doctor, he might have saved it ! That is not the sort of thing 
 which constitutes a criminal offence. And even if these people 
 were negligent and careless, if you think they would have done 
 wisely and properly when this gradual wasting with no other 
 symptom was going on, to have called in Dr. Creasy or some 
 medical attendant, and did not, you would not necessarily say 
 that there was such an amount of neglect and carelessness on 
 their part as would entitle you to find a verdict of manslaughter 
 against them. 
 
 So far as the indisputable evidence goes, it seems clear that 
 when they did move this lady, when they thought she was ill, 
 and when they were going to take her to a medical man, so far 
 as their conduct was concerned with respect to Penge, I say 
 that conduct is consistent with the readiness to bear the fullest 
 inquiry and investigation, and with the greatest care and atten- 
 tion to this unhappy lady. The doctor speaks of the distress 
 the women were in who were attending to her, the surprise that 
 they expressed at the illness from which she was suffering. He 
 says that Alice Rhodes I think it was he or the nurse, I am 
 not quite sure which tint Alice Rhodes was attending and 
 doing all she could in the matter. Then again and again to the 
 doctor ; twice that night they sent for the doctor. They leave 
 the urgent message for him to come. They go, and it was 
 Alice Rhodes who goes and waits till he comes. Louis Staunton 
 goes to him later. The true name was given, the address was
 
 62 THE PENCE CASE 
 
 given. I heard some suggestion at the beginning of the case of 
 their going to Forbes Road, as if that was not in the same 
 registrar's district. I do not know whether anything is to be 
 made of that, but it seems to be in evidence that Forbes Road 
 is in two districts, and that No. 34, the place they took, was in 
 the district which would be registered at Bromley, the very 
 place it would have to be registered in if the death had occurred 
 at Cudham. This is a matter of very trifling importance, and I 
 only mention it to get rid of the idea of suspicion or concealment 
 at all. This death takes place, and after the death what 
 happens ? Is there any behaviour on their part as if they knew 
 they had hurried this unfortunate woman to her grave and were 
 afraid of the deed. They had gone in by chance, as it were, 
 where "apartments to let" were in the window. They took the 
 apartments from a person they never knew before, and from 
 that person they accepted the recommendation of the doctor, of 
 whom they had never heard until that day. From the doctor 
 there came the nurse, a perfect stranger. The undertaker 
 was sent for afterwards. And what do they do ? Why, they 
 go away from the place, and they leave a key with the nurse 
 or at the inn where she was then being employed, with in- 
 structions that she is to show the body to any person who 
 comes, and when there is a suggestion of a difficulty with 
 regard to the medical certificate, Louis Staunton says, "If there 
 is any question about it at all, I should rather you waited. Do 
 not hurry the funeral." 
 
 Gentlemen, from beginning to end, are not the circumstances 
 of the removal consistent with the story which they have told, 
 and which they tell, that there was a sudden illness which 
 surprised and alarmed them, which made them think it 
 necessary, instead of having a doctor who lived some distance 
 off, that they should take this lady where the best medical skill 
 could be constantly at hand. And was there not in the whole 
 conduct of the transfer from Cudham to Penge a manifestation 
 of solicitude and care in the way in which they took the lady, 
 and a manifestation of the most perfect openness and freedom 
 with regard to the publicity of all the proceedings in which they 
 took part. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I believe I have almost finished the observa- 
 tions that I have to make to you. I urge upon you that there is 
 no evidence which would justify you in bringing a verdict of 
 guilty of murder against the man for whom I appear in this 
 case. And I do urge it upon you most seriously, in asking for 
 your anxious consideration, that there is no evidence that he is 
 guilty of the crime of manslaughter. I am anxious to urge this 
 upon you, for I beg you not to look upon it as if manslaughter 
 were a crime involved or necessarily to be decided by the other. 
 When you have dismissed, as I hope you will dismiss the charge
 
 DEFENCE OF PATRICK STAUNTON 6.3 
 
 of murder against him, it is for you then carefully to consider 
 whether there is evidence against him of this negligence and 
 carelessness, and recklessness, as to which my lord will direct 
 you. I have no desire to anticipate a phrase which would 
 entitle you to find a verdict of manslaughter. Is not there only 
 the mistake the honest mistake of which I have spoken, the 
 mistake for which _he has suffered the most terrible punish- 
 ment, gentlemen, to be for months in gaol awaiting his trial for 
 life, to know that, while he lay in one cell of that gaol, in another 
 cell of that shameful birthplace his wife is bringing forth the 
 child of their love ; to have to give up everything that he pos- 
 sesses to supply the means of facing a criminal trial like this ; to 
 sit I was about to forget the worst of all, to have to sit for 
 five or six days listening to these discussions going on, and I 
 fear very much, thinking now and then how much was being 
 left unsaid that should be said for him, how much was being 
 left unasked that might have brought an answer in his favour. 
 All this would have been to him an unsupportable agony, it 
 would have constituted to me in this trial a responsibility almost 
 too great to bear, if he, and I as his advocate, had not been 
 sustained by the knowledge of the way in which a jury deals 
 with a question of life and death. 
 
 Gentlemen, in a case of this kind, would you venture as 
 Christian men to pronounce a verdict of guilty unless you were 
 satisfied beyond reasonable doubt by evidence which was 
 accurate, and clear, and trustworthy, and satisfied you to the 
 hilt of the matters which were alleged, and with which you 
 were asked to deal ? Will you venture to rely thoroughly upon 
 the controverted conclusions of the doctors who have dealt with 
 the medical evidence, or upon the shameless evidence of that 
 girl who came into the witness-box admitting herself a perjurer 
 before the coroner, and proclaiming herself in this court to be 
 the accomplice of the crime which she denounces ? Gentlemen, 
 human justice is depicted as blind. It is not given to human 
 justice to see and to know, as the great Eternal knows, the 
 thoughts and feelings and actions of all men. She has to 
 depend upon what she hears. She must depend upon recollec- 
 tion. She must depend upon testimony. She must depend 
 upon inferences. How should she deal with the irrevocable 
 issues of life and death unless those recollections are exact, that 
 testimony trustworthy, those inferences uncontradicted ? How 
 should she lift the sword to strike and you, gentlemen, guide 
 her hand to-day while at the moment that the accusing voice 
 is in her ear denouncing the crime, the echo of that very voice 
 is heard proclaiming that the prisoners are innocent, and when 
 passionless science steps to her side to warn her that there mny 
 have been in truth no crime committed.
 
 THE DETECTIVE CASE. 
 
 [ON the 24th October, 1877, John Meiklejohn, Nathaniel 
 Druscovich, William Palmer, George Clarke, detective 
 police officers, and Edward Froggatt, solicitor, were put 
 upon their trial at the Central Criminal Court before Mr. 
 Baron Pollock, charged as to the first three with being 
 accessory after the fact to the forgery of certain warrants 
 for 20,000 francs and ,10,000 respectively, committed by 
 Harry Benson, William Kurr, and others, on one Madame 
 de Goncourt, and as to them all with being accessory after 
 the fact to the forgery of the said warrant for ; 10,000, and 
 with conspiring with the said Benson, Kurr, and others, to 
 prevent the lawful apprehension of the same, thereby de- 
 feating the due course of law and justice. The prosecution 
 was conducted by Sir John Holker, Attorney-General, Sir 
 Hardinge Giffard, Solicitor-General, Mr. Gorst, Q.C., Mr. 
 Bowen, and Mr. Cowie. The prisoners were defended as 
 follows : Meiklejohn by Mr. Montagu Williams and Mr. 
 Walter Ballantine ; Druscovich by Mr. Douglas Straight ; 
 Palmer by Mr. Besley and Mr. Grain ; Clarke by Mr. 
 Edward Clarke and Mr. Charles Matthews ; and Froggatt 
 by Mr. Arthur Collins, Q.C., Mr. Avory, and Mr. Kisch. 
 On the 2oth November, which was the twentieth* day of 
 the trial, after a summing up by Mr. Baron Pollock, which 
 lasted for the greater part of two days, George Clarke was 
 acquitted, but Meiklejohn, Druscovich, Palmer, and 
 Froggatt were found guilty and sentenced to two years' 
 imprisonment with hard labour. The following speech was 
 delivered on the fifteenth and sixteenth clays of the trial.] 
 
 Mr. EDWARD CLARKE : May it please your lordship and 
 gentlemen of the jury, It is not possible I should not feel very 
 
 * Owing to a large proportion of the jury being Jews, the court in 
 deference to their religious scruples did not sit on Saturdays.
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 65 
 
 considerable anxiety in addressing myself to the performance of 
 the last portion of the task assigned to me in the conduct of this 
 trial. It is impossible to look back over the days which have 
 been spent in listening to the evidence given in this court, and 
 not to feel anxious lest one should have forgotten some of the 
 evidence, or have misapprehended the effect that evidence might 
 have produced on you, and should fail to deal with matters 
 which have made an impression on your mind. I confess that 
 it is not without very grave anxiety indeed that I rise to address 
 you. I am very proud of the task which has been given to me 
 in this trial. I am very proud that Inspector Clarke in his hour 
 of danger has thought fit to call me to his aid ; that he has not 
 chosen one of the leaders of our great profession ; but has 
 chosen to entrust his case to one who until recently has hardly 
 been known in this court. The magnitude of the trust he has 
 given me somewhat oppresses me, but I feel the consolation 
 that truth will prevail. 
 
 I have noted the way in which you have attended to this case. 
 I am not now, and never have been, going to pay you compli- 
 ments. In such a position as I am placed in to-day, compli- 
 ments would be very suspicious. But, without a compliment, I 
 have noticed the way in which you yourselves have taken the 
 notes of material dates, and registered important parts of the 
 evidence, as they have come before you ; and I am consoled 
 and fortified in the discharge of my duties to-day by the reflec- 
 tion that to your industry and attention my client may look 
 even if he has to regret the deficiencies of his own counsel. 
 
 I have to address you on behalf of Inspector Clarke. I shall 
 have very little occasion to refer to the cases of those who stand 
 by him in the dock ; with one exception an exception which 
 has been forced upon me by observations made in court to-day 
 I shall abstain from saying one syllable that may, directly or 
 indirectly, affect the case of the others standing in the dock. 
 They have been represented by their respective counsel. The 
 man whom I represent to-day would be ashamed of his counsel 
 if he tried to gain advantage by that which would be unfriendly 
 and unbrotherly towards the men by him. But I shall have to 
 allude to the case against them, and upon one occasion to 
 allude to evidence which is important as against Clarke. 
 
 I am not going to make any complaint with regard to the 
 conduct of the prosecution. It has been complained of in the 
 course of the case by those who are not responsible for the 
 defence of Inspector Clarke, that he was employed in his duties 
 during the early part of the examination at the police-court, and 
 then suddenly transferred from the witness-box to the dock, to 
 deprive him, as it has been suggested, of the opportunity of giv- 
 ing evidence for the prisoners. I do not complain in this court 
 
 n
 
 66 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 of the way in which he has been treated. I know that those 
 who have dealt with this matter have had a very serious and 
 difficult duty to perform. I have no doubt that in the discharge 
 of that duty they have been guided solely by what they consider 
 to be considerations of public duty. I am less inclined to com- 
 plain of the course they have taken because I, at this moment, 
 knowing what I shall have to say to you, look forward to a result 
 of this case, which shall be a thousand times better for Inspector 
 Clarke himself, than the hushing up of an inquiry at the Home 
 Office, or the tolerant permission to resign his place. For him 
 I say it fearlessly I believe he is better off to-day, standing 
 in the dock there, to abide your verdict on the evidence, than 
 he would have been if, in consideration of long public service, 
 his superiors had hustled him from the force, or allowed him to 
 resign. My learned friend, Mr. Williams, has explained how it 
 was Inspector Clarke was brought into the dock. He was a 
 witness on the part of the Crown. He was at the time of the 
 early examination at Bow Street discharging his duties. Mr. 
 Williams has frankly told you how he took the course of elicit- 
 ing the name of Inspector Clarke, and insisting that Clarke 
 should go into the witness-box to be cross-examined, or that he 
 should himself be placed in the dock. In my judgment, Mr. 
 Williams was justified in the course he took. His duty was to 
 his client. I make no complaint. I have a duty to my client. 
 It is with his interests alone that I am entitled to deal. Mr. 
 Williams was within the exercise of his right in coupling them 
 together Inspector Clarke with the others and in saying, 
 " Believe against both or against neither." But I am entitled 
 to disentangle the cases. I am bound to keep Inspector 
 Clarke's case entirely separate ; and to beg you to look at it as 
 if he stood in the dock alone. Whatever your verdict may be 
 in this case, I feel confident it will be a discriminating verdict ; 
 you will be allowed time to consider your decision ; you will not 
 have a show of hands about one of the prisoners, and thereby 
 also decide the fate of the other prisoners ; you will remember 
 that there are individual interests ; you will recollect that it is 
 your duty to look very carefully into the evidence with regard 
 to each of the defendants, and separately, too, before you 
 venture upon the responsibility of returning your verdict in this 
 court. 
 
 What is the case ? I will discuss the matter, not as one 
 desirous to mislead you, but as one who, like yourselves, has 
 a duty in this case, the assertion and vindication of justice. 
 
 What is the case? You have before you a man who has 
 arrived at an advanced period of life. That life has been 
 passed in the discharge of his duty in the public service. 
 Thirty-seven years ago that man entered the service of the
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 67 
 
 Crown in one of its humble but important branches. He has 
 by study, perseverance in duty, and earnest and faithful fulfil- 
 ment of his task, risen step by step upwards, and obtained the 
 confidence of those who knew his public service and proved 
 life. He has arrived at almost the highest position open to 
 him in the profession to which he belongs. In the course of 
 that career he has had many opportunities, many temptations. 
 Entrusted for seven years with the charge of cases relating to 
 betting offices and turf frauds, he has been led every week of 
 that period into communication with men who by frauds upon 
 the public were accumulating the large sums of money we have 
 heard mentioned from time to time in this inquiry. Of these 
 men he has been the vigilant and persistent foe. 
 
 When Mr. Williamson was in the box, he told you that from 
 1869 until Inspector Clarke was charged with being a con- 
 spirator against justice, there had been no man in England 
 whose life had been so steadily and successfully devoted as 
 Inspector Clarke's had been to the discovery and destruction of 
 these frauds. One after one, through twenty-one cases, involv- 
 ing upwards of seventy persons, who have been brought to 
 justice, his knowledge and his experience have been brought to 
 bear in trampling out these frauds, and one after one the 
 wretched firms of swindlers, who take so many aliases, and 
 appear and disappear, have found that Inspector Clarke's 
 knowledge and sagacity were not to be evaded. Over seventy 
 persons now look back upon their convictions, and know it was 
 Inspector Clarke who brought them to justice. 
 
 This man must have had enormous opportunities. Swindlers 
 such as he has dealt with, getting their hundreds and thou- 
 sands in a few weeks what to them would have been a gift of 
 money to buy his energies off? If he had been a dishonest 
 man, do you doubt that he might have filled his hands with 
 gold, and been a wealthy man if he had chosen to take the 
 bribes which gladly would have been given? More than that, 
 he has had other opportunities. He has been chosen from his 
 fellows, through his experience and trustworthiness, as the con- 
 fidential agent to investigate public matters matters so impor- 
 tant that his reports did not go to Scotland Yard, so private 
 that Superintendent Williamson was not admitted to a know- 
 ledge of them. Had he been a man who was willing to 
 sacrifice his duty to the opportunity of making money, what 
 opportunities has he not had to be untrue ; and I was going to 
 say, safely untrue ? This has been the man's history ; there his 
 opportunities. How has he used them ? After thirty-seven 
 years of service intelligent and faithful service he is living at 
 a little house of ^36 a year, in Great College Street, West- 
 minster ; and the income that he has does not leave him that
 
 68 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 house to himself. The 36 a year has to be paid partly by the 
 help of a lodger who lives in the bouse. The service in the 
 house, such as is necessary for the lodger, is done by the 
 servant, who gets 2s. a week for her pay. In this little house, 
 the wife and daughter doing the household work, you find him 
 living, after thirty-seven years of such service. One son is 
 married. He is a mosaic tile worker ; his wife keeps a small 
 coffee-shop. One daughter is married, who up to the end of 
 last year was living at home an invalid. 
 
 The Attorney- General alluded to the scantiness of Inspector 
 Clarke's pay. I say nothing in the way of complaint. Clarke 
 is far above that. I would not for the world utter a syllable 
 which would sound in the most distant degree as being a 
 palliation of such an offence as he is charged with. I refer to 
 it for this reason : There is nothing dishonourable in the small 
 pay in the humble position. But the importance of the thing 
 is this that with this small pay he Jives according to it. In 
 the honest poverty in the position in which you find him 
 living you have an evidence and a guarantee of the honesty 
 which I claim for him throughout his career. For twenty years 
 Superintendent Williamson has had daily opportunity of seeing 
 how he discharged his duties. Superintendent Williamson 
 tells us he was a most trusted assistant. Colonel Henderson 
 has had the fullest opportunity of observing his conduct, and 
 he gives an equally favourable report ; and, if it had not been 
 admitted that up to the time of the present accusation no one 
 had dreamed of breathing a word against his most perfect 
 honour and integrity, I could have filled the witness-box with 
 those who would have been only too glad to speak a word in 
 his favour. It is with respect to such a man that, after all 
 these years, and all this service, a strange and shameful story 
 is told. It is said that he has stooped to take from the people, 
 whom it was his duty and the pride of his life to convict, some 
 very paltry share of the large gains of one or two of their 
 frauds : that he, after a life which must have made him as 
 sensitive to the honour of his profession as I am, or as any of 
 my learned friends are, to the honour of the profession to which 
 we belong, has connived at the bribery of his brother officers ; 
 that he has permitted himself to be visited at his own house, by 
 a man belonging to the very gang which he assisted to break 
 up, and the principal persons in which he strove his hardest to 
 bring to justice ; that at his private house, and without the 
 smallest disguise, he has received letters and telegrams from 
 men of the vilest character ; and that he has repeatedly met, at 
 one of the places most open to public observation-, one of the 
 greatest thieves in all London, for whom the detective officers 
 were at that moment looking. You are asked, gentlemen, to
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 69 
 
 believe this ; and you are also asked to believe that the men in 
 whose mercy he has laid unreservedly all the reputation of his 
 p ist life, were men whom he knew to be guilty of every 
 possible form of villainy and deceit men who had already 
 threatened his reputation by proposing to make fraudulent use 
 of a letter which he had written men whom he knew to be 
 forgers men whom he also knew to be betraying their accom- 
 plices, and men of whom every instinct of self-preservation 
 would have warned him to beware. 
 
 That is the story, gentlemen, you are asked to believe ; and 
 who are the witnesses called to support it? 
 
 If you had to deal with such a case in your own private lives ; 
 if there came to you some tale that impeached the honour and 
 honesty of a man who had been dear to you for thirty years, 
 what sort of witness would you insist upon having before you 
 would listen to that tale ? You would require that it should be 
 a man of the highest integrity and clearest purpose and inten- 
 tion who came to tell you that tale. If he told you facts and 
 circumstances which seemed to suggest guilt, with what anxiety 
 would you seek to test it before you believed such a charge. It 
 would be only from men who discovered it in the course of 
 their duty; who told it without passion, with sorrow, and with a 
 sense of public duty ; it would be from men like that, and from 
 none other, that you would listen to such a story. 
 
 From whom do you hear this story ? I have no words to 
 spare for the creatures who came into the witness-box here for 
 Kurr and Benson, and men like them. 
 
 .This is a court of justice. It is not here that I am going to 
 waste my breath and your time by denouncing scoundrels like 
 those. But, knowing what we do, does it not seem to you to be 
 a parody of justice that these men, with smiling lips and glossy 
 words, should be telling this tale ? Does it not make one 
 shudder to see them take the oath ? one of them according to 
 the customs of that venerable creed, whose children handed 
 down to us the divine command, " Thou shall not bear false 
 witness." Upon them, I say, I have no words to waste ; but 
 imagine for yourselves, gentlemen, what sort of witness you 
 would require before you believed, in regard to any person whom 
 you had long known and trusted, such a monstrous tale as has 
 been told in this court. Then describe in your own minds the 
 very opposite of the witness you would require, and you will 
 scarcely be able to conceive a creature so degraded as either of 
 the convicts, Benson or Kurr, who came into that box. 
 
 Whatever weight there may be in this, at the same time the 
 story is before you. It would not be satisfactory simply to 
 denounce these witnesses, and simply to ask you whether you 
 could set their word against the evidence of an honest man's
 
 70 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 life. It is said there has been some corroboration. Before I 
 come to examine specifically what the statements in this case 
 have been, before I take you, by your good leave, through the 
 stories that these men have told, I should like to examine for a 
 moment the question of what sort of corroboration you should 
 require in this case. It has been suggested to you by the 
 Attorney-General that if you find a man has told the truth in 
 one part of a connected story you have a right to consider he 
 has told the truth in the other part of the story where corrobora- 
 tion fails. It is necessary to adopt some such proposition here, or 
 there would be no case. I shall show you that with regard to 
 the matters which affect Inspector Clarke there is no corrobora- 
 tion. The proposition laid down by the Attorney-General is a 
 good principle when it is supported by this that a man is 
 habitually truthful ; but have you that element in the present 
 instance ? So long as you are able to take the presumption of 
 habitual truthfulness, so long the establishment of one part of 
 a story would be the establishment of the whole ; but if you find 
 that after one portion of that story is told you another portion is 
 told, with the same authority and in the same manner, which is 
 deliberately false, what then, in reason and justice, would be 
 your duty ? It would be to do, as I shall ask you to do in this 
 case, to take the story that has been told, and go step by step 
 over it from date to date with keen and vigorous eyes, searching 
 into the evidence which has been given in support of the tale. 
 What do you say your duty would be if you found that many 
 parts of that story were untrue? Gentlemen, it is by your 
 answer to that question that I shall ask you to decide this case 
 as against my client. I shall demonstrate to you that many of 
 the things that have been stated under the mockery of an oath, 
 from that witness-box, by the convict Kurr, are deliberate and 
 wicked untruths. And when I have satisfied you of that, and 
 shown you that with regard to everything which affects Clarke's 
 reputation <ind innocence the whole story depends on the state- 
 ments of that convict Kurr, then, I think, I shall be entitled 
 to ask you, without the smallest fear of what your answer will 
 be, Can you for a moment entertain it ? Will you not reject 
 and repudiate, as the wicked invention of a baffled schemer, the 
 story which has been told you of the guilt of Clarke? At certain 
 points of this case, corroboration is said to have been given by 
 other witnesses. But corroboration, before it can prevail against 
 the presumption of innocence, which is the right of every 
 Englishman, and exceptionally the right of a man who comes 
 to this court with a. character like my client's, must be corrobo- 
 ration, not upon immaterial matters, but upon really material 
 matters, which would bring the guilt home to the accused. The 
 man who invents a story of the kind Kurr and Benson put
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 71 
 
 before you would be an idiot unless he based that story upon 
 real facts that had happened. Take an instance, and I pick one 
 haphazard. Kurr gets into the witness-box, and asks you to 
 believe that on a particular day he gave Clarke ,150 in gold in 
 a bag. He says nobody saw it. There is no record of it. There 
 is no evidence that it takes place except the evidence of Kurr. 
 The corroborative evidence is that upon that day Kurr had 
 ^150. Benson swears he gave ^150 to Kurr. Kurr swears he 
 gave it to Clarke. The one fact by no means proves the other. 
 Benson produces the draft from the British Linen Company on 
 this particular day for ,300. You might add evidence to 
 infinity in that direction. The man who made the cheque-book 
 might be called to corroborate the fact that the cheque-book 
 exists. But, with all, you have got nothing more than this the 
 original statement of Kurr. If Kurr were inventing a lying 
 story, there is no reason that I see for his not selecting the day 
 on which he had the money, thinking that it might have some 
 influence with the jury. 
 
 At this point of the learned counsel's address, it being four 
 o'clock, the court adjourned until the following day, when 
 
 Mr. CLARKE, resuming his address on behalf of Inspector 
 Clarke, said : When I concluded last evening I was about to 
 address myself to the history of the case so far as it concerns 
 the transactions said to have taken place between Benson and 
 Clarke in the course of the year 1875. 
 
 At the end of the year 1874, the fortunes of Benson seem to 
 have undergone a remarkable and mysterious change. In 1872 
 he had been convicted of a fraud upon the Lord Mayor of 
 London ; he had spent twelve months in prison as a punishment 
 for that offence, and when he came out of prison, crippled by 
 the attempt to destroy himself by setting fire to his bed, he was 
 sent by his friends to be taken care of by Mrs. Avis, to whom 
 an allowance of 2 a week was made. But at the end of 1874, 
 instead of being a pensioner on the bounty of his friends, he 
 suddenly develops into the man of wealth and influence. He 
 took Mrs. Avis, from the little house where she had been 
 residing, down to Shanklin, as his housekeeper, and there he 
 stayed from January until nearly the end of 1875, living in a 
 position not of respectability merely, but of apparent honour 
 and distinction. He was accepted as a friend by the gentry of 
 the neighbourhood. His education and his social accomplish- 
 ments recommended him, and from some source or other he 
 had obtained the means of keeping up in the Isle of Wight the 
 establishment of which he spoke in this court with some pride. 
 He held himself out to the people around him as a mysterious 
 person. He passed under the name of Yonge ; but he made it 
 appear that he was a man who, if he were not a member of a
 
 ?a THE DTCTIV C 
 
 distinguished family, had, at all events, somewhat of that air of 
 mystery surrounding him which would render him more interest- 
 ing as a companion. Where did he get the money from ? He 
 had obtained it, there can be little doubt, from the Walters and 
 Murray fraud. 
 
 In April, 1875, tne Walters and Murray fraud was being 
 dragged to light by the exertions of Inspector Clarke. In his 
 report of March i, 1875, Clarke dealt with that matter, and 
 stated, with reference to the frequent complaints from France, 
 Italy, Germany, and Russia, respecting the Society for Assur- 
 ances against Losses on the Turf, the various names under 
 which the firm -had passed, and also that the amount of money 
 realised by the frauds was probably between ^70,000 and 
 ; 1 00,000. 
 
 On January 5, 1875, Clarke made a report with regard to 
 Sidney Clarke and Co., one of the fraudulent firms. On 
 February 10, what seemed like accident brought Walters and 
 Murray within the grasp of the law. Mr. Barclay, who 
 prosecuted in the assault case, was possessed of certain papers 
 which Walters and Murray did not think it was good for them 
 he should have. They committed an assault upon him, and 
 took the papers. The case came before the Clerkenwell Police- 
 court. There was not sufficient evidence of the assault, but 
 Clarke seized the opportunity. Having obtained the authority 
 of the Treasury, he got a warrant from the Lord Mayor of 
 London, and directly Walters and Murray left the court they 
 were arrested upon a far graver charge. 
 
 In April, 1875, tne one person with whom Benson and his 
 accomplices had to deal was Inspector Clarke. It was his 
 experience that they had to fear. It was by his advice and 
 agency that legal assistance was employed, and threatened to 
 bring down upon them the well-deserved penalty of the 
 criminal law. Under these circumstances Benson conceived 
 the bold scheme of putting himself in communication with 
 Scotland Yard, and obtaining interviews with Clarke, at which 
 he might bribe him if he found he was open to temptation, and 
 have the means of setting up some sort of confidence or 
 correspondence with Clarke which would hamp r him in the 
 discharge of his duties. He had one weapon in his possession. 
 It was a letter from Clarke written in the year 1874. 
 
 At that time Walters had received a licence, and was 
 carrying on a publican's business. 
 
 In 1874 it was believed a burglary had been planned at the 
 house Walters kept. Clarke, instructed to discover the burglars, 
 had, with the knowledge of Superintendent Williamson and 
 almost every detective officer in the force, put himself in 
 communication with Walters with a view to obtain information
 
 DEFENCE OP GEORGE CLARKE 73 
 
 A letter which Walters received, Walters carefully kept, and 
 had threatened to use it against Inspector Clarke if he was too 
 active in the discharge of his duties. Something else had been 
 done with that letter. It had been photographed, in order to 
 secure a hold upon Inspector Clarke. A photograph would be 
 as useful for them for the purposes for which they meant to use 
 it as the original letter itself. There is something else. Kurr 
 is clever in copying handwriting. He had produced so exact a 
 copy of the letter written by Clarke to Walters thit in the 
 witness-box he was not able for the moment to tell which was 
 the original and which was the forgery. With this weapon in 
 his hand Benson began the plot against Clarke. He was in the 
 possession of considerable sums of money, and he put himself 
 into communication with Andrews, a colonial broker in the 
 City, against whose respectability no suggestion can be made. 
 With Mr. Andrews Benson had some business connection, and 
 he told Mr. Andrews that he could give information with 
 respect to the Walters and Murray fraud. In a most open way, 
 Andrews wrote a letter to Scotland Yard, and afterwards called 
 there and saw Inspector Clarke. 
 
 I have the report of Inspector Clarke of April I2th, 1875, on 
 what Andrews had stated at Scotland Yard. It states that 
 Andrews had told him that Yonge, who had offered to give the 
 information, was ill in bed, suffering from the effects of a 
 railway accident, and being unable to leave his house wished 
 some one to call upon him, and had sent $ to pay the ex- 
 penses of the journey. Inspector Clarke concluded by stating 
 that he had declined to accept the money. 
 
 On April I2th he asked for authority to see Yonge. He gets 
 it, and goes to Shanklin. He had an interview with Benson on 
 the night of April I2th, and on the morning of the I3th 
 Benson represented that he had unfortunately answered an 
 advertisement for a person to make translations, but that at the 
 time he did not know that it was for a fraudulent purpose, and 
 he added that he hoped to be spared the indignity of going 
 into the witness-box to say he had been the dupe of 
 criminals. 
 
 He told Clarke of the letter to Walters, and that that letter 
 had a construction put upon it hostile to his (Clarke's) integrity. 
 He further told Clarke that two officers of Scotland Yard had 
 received bribes from Walters and Murray. He admitted in the 
 witness-box that this charge was false. There is not the smallest 
 concealment about this interview. 
 
 Returning to London, Inspector Clarke made a report to 
 Superintendent Williamson. He said he believed Yonge to 
 be a rogue and a scoundrel, and that he could get no real in- 
 formation from him. He also reported in writing to the
 
 74 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 Commissioner, under date the I5th April, 1875, the result of his 
 visit to Shanklin. 
 
 At the interview so detailed one thing more had happened. 
 According to Benson he had offered Inspector Clarke 100, 
 and, also according to Benson, Clarke had paid no heed to 
 that offer. He had offered 20 in a packet, and Clarke put it 
 back. But being foiled in this attempt to bribe Clarke, time 
 being urgent, and it being essential to anything being done 
 with Clarke to get him in Benson's power as quickly as possible, 
 Benson endeavoured to get some sort of evidence which would 
 enable him afterwards to swear he had done so. He did it in 
 this way : First, there was an important letter written by 
 Meiklejohn on June 26th, 1875, in which Meiklejohn says 
 " Send me the chieftain's visit registered in it." Now, it is 
 essential that I should point out to you that some persons there 
 were attaching importance to the fact of evidence being got that 
 might be proof of Clarke having been to Shanklin. Benson 
 says that at the first interview something was mentioned about 
 writing; that he asked Inspector Clarke to write to him. It 
 would be very natural that Inspector Clarke should hesitate to 
 do so, when he knew that persons were trying to make an 
 unfair use of a perfectly honest letter of his, which he had 
 written with the sanction of his superiors, which related to 
 official business, and which was written in the endeavour to 
 find out crime. He might well have hesitated to write letters 
 which, though not likely to do him any harm, might be the 
 models which that skilful forger, Kurr, might utilise. The 
 letters which were written by Benson about this time do not 
 remain. 
 
 Inspector Clarke has told you in one of his reports that the 
 whole matter passed from his mind. Walters and Murray 
 being out on bail, escaped from the country, and on the ist of 
 July, 1875, the Treasury proceedings were abandoned. The 
 correspondence therefore was of no use, and when he thought 
 of retiring from the police, and spoke to Superintendent 
 Williamson about it, he destroyed a number of letters, and 
 those of Benson's were, perhaps, among them. But some 
 letters of Inspector Clarke to Benson were preserved by the 
 schoolmaster at Shanklin, and they show the honesty of 
 Inspector Clarke in the matter. They show also that Benson 
 was writing to Clarke at that time with the object of entrapping 
 him to a private correspondence and understanding. But 
 Clarke saw the trap which was laid for him, and declined. 
 
 The JUDGE : Those letters, I think, were not produced until 
 the schoolmaster was called. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : No, my lord. Inspector Clarke's own name is 
 signed to those letters, and they bear the address, 20, Great
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 75 
 
 College Street, or Scotland Yard. So far as Inspector Clarke's 
 letters are concerned, not one has been produced in the course 
 of this trial which might not be published in the Police Gazette, 
 and scattered to all the world with perfect confidence by the 
 man who wrote it. On the 26th April, Inspector Clarke 
 answered Benson's letter of the igth, and Benson was foiled in 
 his attempt to entrap Inspector Clarke into a private corre- 
 spondence with him. The letter shows it. Time, however, goes 
 on, and the next visit we come to is that of the 22nd June. 
 
 You have heard how Inspector Clarke happened to go to the 
 Isle of Wight. He was on leave in June, and his wife had gone 
 to the Isle of Wight to see if she could find some inexpensive 
 lodgings suited to the family's means for a daughter who was 
 not well. Not finding them, Inspector Clarke went to bring 
 her back, and while he was there he called upon Benson. 
 Benson says that on that occasion he gave Clarke .50 in gold. 
 At the moment I come to such a point as that, I ask you where 
 is the corroboration. Now, Benson says he received the gold 
 from Mr. Cooper, in Shanklin, in change for a ^100 note. 
 Well, then, there is a possible corroboration of that call Mr. 
 Cooper, and hear what he says. Mr. Cooper is called, and his 
 evidence directly and positively contradicts Benson. Mr, 
 Cooper says he changed a ^100 note for Benson at some time 
 during the first half of the year ; but he says he gave him six- 
 teen ^5 Bank of England notes and 20 in gold. Where is 
 Benson's story now, of the 50 in gold got from Mr. Cooper, 
 with which he alleged he bribed Inspector Clarke on June 
 22nd? There is no fragment of corroboration of any sort or 
 kind with regard to this matter except Mr. Cooper, and 
 when he comes into the witness-box he does not corroborate 
 Benson. 
 
 The JUDGE : You may dismiss that, I think, on another 
 ground, because, as I observed to Mr. Gorst at the time, Mr. 
 Cooper says it was about April, 1875, ne changed the note; 
 and you are dealing with a specific date of the 22nd June. 
 Excuse me for saying so. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I am grateful to you, my lord. Gentlemen, 
 it is gone then. But mind, when a story of that kind goes, 
 contradicted by a witness who has been vouched as the 
 corroboration of it, it does not go alone, it takes with it a 
 great deal more ; because when you have begun to find out 
 the lies that have been attempted to be palmed off upon you 
 by that witness, you have begun to dismiss from your minds 
 the evidence of that witness altogether. Benson then says 
 there was another interview on the 4th July, when he gave 
 Clarke another ^50. There is no corroboration of that. There 
 might have been if Benson's story was true, for he says that ,50
 
 76 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 was paid in Bank of England notes, and that those notes were 
 obtained from the Hampshire Banking Company ; but they 
 are not vouched, and you have seen how easily bank-notes are 
 traced. There is no corroboration of it; but, on the contrary, a 
 distinct contradiction. 
 
 The valet is called who was at the Isle of Wight from the i3th 
 April till after the 4th of July ; but he remembers only two visits 
 of Clarke to Benson, those being the I2th of April and the 22nd 
 of June. 
 
 Again, on the 5th of July, Mrs. Avis leaves Benson's service, 
 and she, too, speaks of two visits only. All this evidence, 
 therefore, entirely negatives the allegation of Benson that Clarke 
 was there on the 4th of July. But, besides this, there is the 
 overwhelming answer that Clarke could not have been at 
 Shanklin on that day. With the register before him, Super- 
 intendent Williamson could say with certainty what kind of 
 work Clarke was on that day engaged in. The 4th of July was 
 a Sunday, and on that day he was employed in looking after the 
 case of Mina Jury, one of the witnesses in the Tichborne trial, a 
 duty which kept him in London. 
 
 Thus, the story of the 50 is absolutely destroyed, first, by 
 the evidence referred to by his lordship, and next, by the 
 conclusive testimony of Superintendent Williamson. But when 
 this has gone a good deal more goes with it, and I say that the 
 man who gets into the witness-box and tells a false tale of 
 specific acts of bribery, is a man to be suspected and disbelieved 
 ' at every turn of the case, and that the documents he produces 
 must be looked at in a different light from that in which we look 
 at those which come from an honest man. 
 
 The JUDGE : Benson, in his evidence, said the 4th or 5th of 
 July. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL: As to this interview, I think he 
 said it was some time before the 4th or 5th of July. 
 
 The JUDGE : What I took down is this, " I saw Clarke a week 
 or ten days after the interview of the 23rd of June. It was the 
 4th or 5th of July. I gave him ^50 in notes," &c. 
 
 Mr. E. CLARKE : I am obliged to your lordship, but every 
 observation I have made applies equally to any date between 
 the 22nd of June and the 3rd of August, for all that time, as 
 Superintendent Williamson shows, Inspector Clarke was on duty 
 at Scotland Yard ; while as to the payment of the bank-notes, 
 there is no corroboration before you. 
 
 The JUDGE : Superintendent Williamson said that on the 22nd 
 of June, Clarke was on leave for one day, and that from the 3rd 
 to the 1 6th of August was his annual leave ; then, that on the 
 2nd and 3rd of July he was at Sandown Park on duty. 
 
 Mr. E. CLARKE: Your lordship will find in there-examination
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 77 
 
 of Williamson that the inquiry was carried from the 22nd of June 
 to the 3rd of August. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : Williamson said, in answer to me, 
 that Clarke had no leave from the 22nd June to the 3rd of 
 August. 
 
 Mr. E. CLARKE : Has your lordship found the re-examination 
 to which I have referred ? 
 
 The JUDGE : Yes ; but I do not find any re-examination with 
 regard to Clarke with the exception of the record of expenses. 
 
 Mr. E. CLARKE : On June 22nd Clarke had leave for one day, 
 and from the 3rd to the i6th August he had his holiday. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : I believe you are correct, Mr. 
 Clarke. 
 
 Mr. E. CLAHKE : Being on holiday from the 3rd to iyth of 
 August, he takes his daughter to the I^le of Wight, goes to 
 Shanklin, and leaves her in a confectioner's shop for half an 
 hour, while he makes a call, no doubt upon Benson. The 
 communication which then took place seems to have been of 
 the same kind as before. Benson says that he was frequently 
 holding himself out to Mr. Clarke as a person who could give 
 him information. He was, in fact, getting such information 
 from Kurr, and did give Clarke some information, not as to the 
 Walters and Murray fraud, but with regard to Trevelli, who in 
 due time got his five years' penal servitude. 
 
 There is one more important matter in this case. In January, 
 1876, Benson saw Clarke, and gave him some information as 
 to Walters and Murray. That information was immediately 
 communicated by Clarke to his superiors, and upon it not only 
 were measures taken in England, but in France also, in order if 
 Walters and Murray came back, that they might be appre- 
 hended. 
 
 I come now to the curious story about the four drafts of letters 
 from Benson to Clarke which were produced by Mrs. Avis. 
 Her story is that when Benson was writing to Clarke he got her 
 to copy his letters, signature, and all, in order, as Benson says, 
 that Clarke should have no specimen of his handwriting ; and 
 Mrs. Avis tells you that he never asked her to copy any letters 
 to other persons. She also states that she destroyed the first 
 few drafts, but after took to keeping these drafts, without Ben- 
 son's knowledge, and preserving them until the year 1877, when 
 she produces them as vouchers for letters written by Benson. 
 These drafts have been put in evidence, and if they are true, 
 they are undoubtedly drafts of letters which it would have been 
 a serious indiscretion on the part of Clarke to receive. Remem- 
 ber this, however, that the only scrap of evidence there is with 
 regard to these letters is in Benson's handwriting that, however 
 it may be explained by Mrs. Avis, the drafts on which you are
 
 Jr8 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 asked to believe that Clarke was engaged in a wicked correspon- 
 dence with Benson are all in Benson's handwriting. Apart from 
 the evidence, then, which has been given of their custody, they 
 might as well have been concocted afterwards as before. There 
 is no evidence throughout the case to show that Clarke ever 
 acknowledged receiving such letters. Curiously enough, of 
 these four letters three contain exactly the same expression. In 
 the only one that Clarke finds among his papers, that of the i8th 
 of September, 1875, there is not an allusion that can affect the 
 honour of Clarke. On the contrary, that letter is a complaint 
 of Benson that Clarke had not given him some information in 
 the letter to which it was in answer ; but of the four letters put 
 in, three contain this expression, "The debt which I owe" 
 exactly the words which a baffled schemer like Benson, foiled in 
 his attempt to bribe, and to set up a confidential correspondence 
 between himself and Clarke, would use in pretended letters, the 
 drafts of which were to be produced hereafter against Clarke. 
 Poor evidence, indeed, but the best he could make against 
 Clarke's honour. He could not induce him to accept the bribe, 
 he could not induce him to enter into correspondence, and 
 therefore he was bound to invent evidence by which Inspector 
 Clarke should be affected. If these letters had been written, 
 and if there had been any answers to them which compromised 
 Inspector Clarke, would not these answers have been produced 
 before you? If in 1875 Benson had found in any of the letters 
 passages affecting the reputation of Inspector Clarke, would not 
 those letters have been photographed or copied ? 
 
 There is another observation I want to make upon this. Not 
 only is the story of Mrs. Avis an extraordinary story, but it 
 becomes still more extraordinary when you compare it with the 
 evidence of the schoolmaster. He says that he destroyed a 
 number of letters by direction of Benson, but that he preserved 
 four, which he posted, and which were afterwards found in the 
 Dead Letter Office. These letters are valuable evidence in 
 favour of Inspector Clarke. They are letters which look as 
 though they were invented afterwards, and, moreover, they are 
 letters which Benson, after what had passed between him and 
 Clarke, would never have written. In the first of them there is 
 a postscript, " If you do not like to write, let me know when you 
 can see me." It is not to be believed that there was any re- 
 luctance on the part of Inspector Clarke to write, and you are 
 asked to accept the draft letters of this description as evidence 
 that such a letter was actually written to Inspector Clarke. A 
 letter was written on the I5th June, but not like the draft pro- 
 duced, and it was answered by Clarke on the following day, 
 when he said, " No doubt you have heard that the two men 
 Walters and Murray did not appear to take their trial, and
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 79 
 
 have not been heard of since. I hear they have left the country. 
 I shall be glad to see you on the matter." Upon the face of it 
 that letter is not an answer to the draft put before you, and if 
 you examine the evidence you will come to the conclusion that 
 the draft was invented. In two other draft letters the words 
 "my debt to you" occurs, and it is proved to you that no money 
 had been paid. 
 
 Another and still more remarkable instance of the way in 
 which this man was endeavouring to entrap Inspector Clarke, 
 or to pretend to entrap him, is the letter of the 24th June, in 
 which he says, " Appoint a place in which I can see you un- 
 known to any one." 
 
 Again, you see, there is the suggestion that there is a private 
 understanding between them. But when Benson comes to 
 London, what happens with regard to his meeting with Clarke ? 
 Inspector Clarke does not appoint a place where they can meet 
 quietly, but Benson, with his servant, drives to College Street, 
 and Clarke, after standing talking in front of his house for a 
 quarter of an hour, is actually conveyed in Benson's cab and set 
 down at Scotland Yard. Could it, therefore, be suggested for a 
 moment that Clarke was a man who would stoop to a private 
 meeting such as that which had been suggested in the 
 letter ? 
 
 You are asked to accept these letters, which are condemned 
 by their own internal evidence, and in order to accept them you 
 must say that Mrs. Avis was neither an accomplice nor a dupe. 
 Her position was a very curious one. I do not want to say hard 
 things about her, but when one comes to think how Yonge, 
 under her eye, passed from the pensioner of 2 a week to a 
 position of wealth, and when you know that position was the 
 result of frauds carried on from the house in which he lodged, 
 when you know that Mrs. Avis knew that he was passing under 
 an assumed name, that she knew Kurr by the name of Medway 
 and Giffard also, that she knew of the large correspondence 
 passing in and out of the house at Shanklin, you will say that if 
 she did not suspect anything wrong about Yonge she must have 
 been wilfully blind, or a very foolish old woman. Benson had 
 been kind to her, put her son to school, and, according to his 
 own statement, made her an allowance of ^40 a year. She 
 says that she never received anything from him. From the 
 time he left her house until the time he was confined to New- 
 gate, he had ample opportunity of communicating with Mrs. 
 Avis. You hear from her son-in-law that there was a heap of 
 burned paper in the fireplace at the Leconfield-road. 
 
 Under these circumstances am I not justified in saying this 
 about Mrs. Avis ? Is she an independent witness? Is she a 
 witness with regard to whose evidence you can say it may be
 
 8o THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 accepted as the evidence of a disinterested person? She must 
 have shut her eyes to a good many suspicious things r.t Shanklin ; 
 and am 1 wrong in saying that she must have shut her eyes a 
 good deal, and that she was a person whom Benson could very 
 well have deceived ? As to these letters, may she not have got 
 the drafts, and then posted the real letters ? The whole story 
 of these draft letters rests upon your confidence in the integrity 
 and truthfulness of Mrs. Avis. Why, the clumsiest person in a 
 country fair would have found it easy to have set up such a 
 piece of evidence as this upon which you are asked to find 
 Inspector Clarke guilty. During the whole of the time it was 
 suggested to you that Benson was giving Clarke money, what 
 was Clarke doing ? Did he swerve for an instant in his pro- 
 secution of the Walters and Murray fraud ? He was watched 
 by men whom it would have been impossible to deceive, and 
 was in communication with the cleverest men in London in 
 dealing with matters of this kind the solicitor to the Treasury, 
 Mr. Poland, the counsel employed by the Treasury, and Mr. 
 Pollard, whose experience no one c<m gainsay. Both Mr. 
 Pollard and Superintendent Williamson have said that, so far 
 as the Walters and Murray fraud was concerned, Inspector 
 Clarke had shown the greatest determination to bring the men 
 to justice. Walters and Murray, unfortunately, were admitted 
 to bail ; but you have heard in evidence that Inspector Clarke 
 was vigorous in his attempts to prevent bail being accepted. 
 Those two men absconded ; and when they had done so, the 
 whole thing, so far as the Treasury was concerned, was given 
 up. You will remember the expression in a letter written by 
 Meiklejohn to Kurr, " The Treasury has paid and settled up all 
 accounts in the case of Walters and Murray." But the exertions 
 of my client did not stop with that. What was his position, 
 and what did he do ? If he had been bribed if any evidence 
 whatever existed against him the most natural course for him 
 to have taken would have been to let the matter rest. Can we 
 imagine that if he had been in league with these men he would 
 have endeavoured to re-open their case ? I confess that I can- 
 not. But what does happen? On the i8:h January, 1876, he 
 sees Benson ; that person gives him some information with 
 regard to Walters and Murray having been to Havre, and 
 Inspector Clarke immediately reports to his superiors what he 
 has heard, and sets inquiry again in motion. He makes most 
 urgent efforts, not only so far as England is concerned, but also 
 in regard with France, to have those two men re-arrested. 
 
 Having said this, I have almost come to the end of the story 
 so far as it relates to Benson and Clarke ; and I submit that the 
 allegation of bribes has entirely disappeared, and that those 
 allegations are false and wicked fabrication?. Before I pass on
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE i 
 
 to the dealings which are said to have taken place between Kurr 
 and Clarke, there is one interview that of August 30, 1875 to 
 which I desire to refer. 
 
 The tale is that Benson was staying at one of the hotels, and 
 that he arranged with Clarke to come and see him. That Mr. 
 Clarke did see him in the course of his inquiries there is no 
 doubt. His own report states so. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : He did not report it at the 
 time. 
 
 Mr. EDWARD CLARKE : I am astonished to hear the learned 
 Attorney-General make such an observation. We have had it 
 distinctly stated by Superintendent Williamson that it was no 
 part of my client's duty at that stage to make any report ; that 
 it was no part of his duty to make reports of inquiries which had 
 led to no result. The moment, however, a result is obtained, 
 that moment he makes a report to the office. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, it is said that Clarke met Benson at the 
 Langharn Hotel, and that William Kurr was in an adjoining 
 room to hear what passed. Oddly enough, however, Kurr can 
 only repeat one single sentence of what was said ; he can tell 
 you nothing else. All he can say is that he heard he was not to 
 be arrested. 
 
 But, gentlemen, two months before this interview, official 
 notice had been circulated amongst the police that Kurr was 
 not to be taken into custody ; and why there should be this 
 hole-and-corner proceeding taken in order to make him aware 
 of the fact I cannot understand. Again, you will remember the 
 letter which Kurr addressed to Inspector Clarke, stating that 
 his name had been connected most unjustly with the turf frauds. 
 If Clarke had entered into the conspiracy which is alleged 
 against him, what would he have done in regard to that 
 letter? He would have communicated with Kurr. But what 
 does he do ? He makes a report the same day, submits the 
 letter to his superiors, and distinctly asks for solicitor's instruc- 
 tions in the matter, 
 
 Let me now go away from the Benson story, so far as it is 
 connected with Kurr, and span over the long interval which 
 occurred before any communications passed between Kurr 
 himself and Clarke. It is not until September, 1876, that any 
 communication is alleged to have taken place between them. 
 During the whole of that year there is only one incident, but it 
 is rather an important one, in which Inspector Clarke's name is 
 mentioned in connection with this matter. It arises out of some 
 inquiries respecting Parbrook (William Kurr), who was carrying 
 on a betting agency at 34, Gumming Street, Pentonville. 
 Meiklejohn writes a letter to Kurr, under date loth June, 1876, 
 in which occurs the following ; " Dear Bill, Your brother had 
 
 r
 
 8i THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 better not go for any more letters. It is too hot. There al'e 
 some there, but it is too hot. The 'old man' (Clarke) has 
 Sent Andrews, and he has got the description." Now, this 
 letter is conclusive proof that at the beginning of June, 1876, they 
 looked upon Clarke as an antagonist whom they had the greatest 
 reason to fear. 
 
 I come now to the alibi at Sandown Park races. On the De 
 Goncottrt trial an important question for the jury was whether 
 Kurr was at Flintoffs offices on the 3ist of August, 1876, when 
 the agreement was signed. Kurr, who was a witness for the 
 prosecution, swore that he saw Clarke at Sandown Park Races 
 on that day, and five other witnesses, upon whom no shade of 
 suspicion rests, swore the same thing. But you are now asked 
 to believe, on the unsupported testimony of Kurr, that all those 
 witnesses committed perjury. It is necessary for the convicts, 
 in order to endeavour to establish the story which they have 
 told, to show that Clarke was helping them in some way or 
 other, and accordingly you are told that with the instructions 
 passed out to Mr. Humphreys, their solicitor, were communica- 
 tions for Colkett, requesting him to suborn several witnesses to 
 perjury in order to establish an alibi for Kurr. The instructions 
 to Colkett contained the following viz., "I want you to go to the 
 old man's house and to see his wife. I mean the old man of the 
 D. of Y.'s Column." Now, you are asked to believe that this is 
 corroborative evidence of Kurr's statement. How can we tell 
 the meaning of the phrase, "The old man of the D. of Y.'s 
 Column"? And, as I have already pointed out to you, the 
 corroboration of identity depends upon William Kurr's state- 
 ment only. There is one witness who could have been called 
 to corroborate this story. Colkett could have told us who " The 
 old man of the D. of Y.'s Column" was, and whether he acted 
 on Kurr's instructions ; and although Colkett's name was given 
 to us as a witness for the prosecution, he has not been called. 
 You are asked to believe that although Clarke ostensibly went 
 into the witness-box in the De Goncourt trial as a witness for 
 the prosecution, yet that in reality he went there in the interests 
 of the accused, and suborned to perjury. 
 
 (The learned counsel referred to the shorthand writers' notes 
 of the cross-examination of Clarke by Serjeant Parry at the De 
 Goncourt trial, that showed that several questions were put to 
 him on the question of the alibi, to which he stated in effect 
 that he could not remember ; that ultimately, at the suggestion 
 of Serjeant Parry, he said that if he (Clarke) was at Sandown 
 races on August 31, his duty-book would show ; and that his 
 cross-examination was adjourned in order to give him an 
 opportunity of referring thereto.) 
 
 Gentlemen, the suborned witness goes back to the office to
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 83 
 
 examine his duty-book, the book which has been in court on 
 this trial, and he finds that on the day he had stated, the 3ist 
 August, he was at Sandown Park races. The next day he was 
 again put in the box, and was enabled to say that he saw 
 William Kurr on the 3ist August at Sandown Park, and received 
 a complaint from him that several persons who were not mem- 
 bers of TattersalPs were in the ring, when he was not allowed to 
 be there. Gentlemen, is it possible to listen to that evidence, 
 which was extorted from him, and not to say that the lie is with 
 William Kurr when he said that Clarke was committing perjury ? 
 How many honest men's words is William Kurr's evidence to 
 outweigh ? Time was when an honest man's word was taken 
 against the words of any number of thieves ; but it seems to me 
 that now we are trying to reverse the process. 
 
 I have called before you on this point Mr. Griffin, who kept 
 the inn at Tad worth, and Rowe, who trained horses for Kurr. 
 He remembers distinctly the time of the year, and the horses 
 he was training at that time. Both these persons gave evidence 
 on the alibi. When they had seen the reports in the papers that 
 Kurr alleged that the evidence was a lie, they wrote the letters 
 which Clarke handed to the Commissioners at Scotland Yard. 
 
 Every sort of inquiry has been made by the Treasury with 
 regard to these men. They say they went together on the 3ist 
 August. Griffin says it was on that day, and that day only, 
 that he went to Sandown Park races, that he and Rowe went in 
 a waggonette, and that they saw William Kurr at Esher and at 
 Sandown Park races. Now, Kurr has been lying again in this 
 court, when he suggested that Clarke was party to a fraud ; but 
 these men are not friends of his, but strangers, who see that 
 an honest man may be wronged, and they come forward to 
 prevent it. 
 
 Gentlemen, may I be confident that you have swept from your 
 minds altogether the evidence of William Kurr that there was 
 any perjured alibi set up for him in this court ? 
 
 I next come to the alleged interviews between Kurr and 
 Clarke. Kurr says there were three interviews at Clarke's 
 house. Now, up to the time that one of Clarke's daughters, 
 Mrs. Payne, married, shortly before Christmas, 1876, there had 
 been in the house, Mrs. Clarke, the two daughters, and the 
 servant who attended to the lodger. These persons used to 
 attend to the door, and Kurr says that the three times he went 
 there the door was opened by a young woman. Miss Clarke 
 says that she or the servant used to open the door, and some- 
 times Mrs. Clarke. By a singular eccentricity of the law I am 
 not enabled to put the wife in the witness-box, though, perhaps, 
 a wife would be the most valuable of witnesses, but the 
 daughter and the servant are called, and both, after looking at
 
 84 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 William Kurr, pledged their oath in this court and not a 
 single question was asked of them in cross-examination that 
 William Kurr never came to that house. Kurr does not fix the 
 date exactly when he says he gave the ^50 to Clarke. All you 
 have is Kurr's statement that on some day in September, 1876, 
 he was admitted to Clarke's house by a young woman, and that 
 at the interview he then had with Clarke he gave Clarke $o. 
 There is absolutely nothing but the evidence of William Kurr 
 against Mr. Clarke. I believe that you are satisfied now that 
 unless there is some corroboration of some kind or another of 
 Kurr's evidence, it would be the most unreasonable thing that 
 you should accept that evidence against either of the prisoners 
 in the dock. 
 
 But observe, when I come to the next step, where contradic- 
 tion is possible, that contradiction comes in the fullest, clearest, 
 and most distinct manner, for with regard to the next interview 
 the date is fixed. Kurr says it took place on the 2 jth September, 
 at twenty minutes or half-past 10 in the evening, when he had 
 been summoned to Clarke by a note on a bit of blotting paper. 
 He says Clarke asked him if they had changed the notes, and 
 advised them not to go to the place next day. He vouches the 
 man Porter, the cabman who took him to the corner of College 
 Street, and he says that Clarke advised him not to drive back 
 to the Marquess Road. He adds that, acting on that advice, 
 he drove to Newington-Green Road to Benson's house, and 
 threw a stone through Benson's window. Now, Porter, although 
 he speaks of driving Kurr, does not say a word about driving 
 to Newington-Green Road, or about the stone thrown through 
 the window. But if you believe Kurr's story, his going to 
 Clarke's house was the greatest absurdity, for he had met 
 Druscovich in the afternoon, who told him that the news had 
 come in from France, and that he (Druscovich) had all the 
 papers in his desk. 
 
 According to Kurr's account, an arrangement was made to 
 meet Druscovich at the arches of the Charing Cross Railway 
 Station ; therefore there is no reason for this visit to Clarke. I 
 have, therefore, shown by Kurr's own account th.at it is false ; 
 but I have done more than that, for I have proved before you 
 where Clarke was that night. It was arranged that Mrs. Clarke 
 should go into the country to see her brother-in-law, who was 
 ill, and who is since dead. Her daughter-in-law, who keeps a 
 coffee-shop, was to go with her, but something prevented it ; 
 and, wishing to see her mother-in-law, she went, on the evening 
 of the 25th, to the railway station, to which Mrs. Clarke would 
 return. At that railway station she met Mr. Clarke, and as the 
 train was late they waited together at the station from half-past 
 nine until she arrived. When she arrived, the three of them
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 85 
 
 went to the Underground Railway Station, and there separated. 
 Clarke and his wife went to Westminster, and the daughter 
 says she sat up for them till half-past eleven or a quarter to 
 twelve o'clock that night, at which time they arrived. So that 
 here is an absolute contradiction of the statement of William 
 Kurr as to the interview of the 25th September. 
 
 The next interview is that of the 4th October. On the even- 
 ing of that day Kurr says he gave Clarke ^150 in gold, and 
 that Clarke said something to him about changing the notes ; 
 but the notes, according to Benson's evidence, had been got rid 
 of on the previous day. Now there, too, though we have not a 
 direct contradiction, we have this, that the interview which is 
 said to have taken place in Clarke's house did not occur, a 
 witness testifying that Kurr did not come there at all. 
 
 I pass now to the interview of the loth October, with regard 
 to which I shall be able to satisfy you that the whole story is a 
 fabrication. Kurr says that on that day he saw and made an 
 arrangement with Clarke about sending Von Tornow to the 
 Midland Railway Station. He had telegraphed to Clarke, to 
 Palmer, and to Von Tornow from Brighton, and a telegraph 
 clerk from Brighton states that a telegram was sent from 
 " Giffard." There is also evidence of a telegram having been 
 delivered at Palmer's, but not the slightest as to one being sent 
 to Clarke or to Von Tornow, whilst Von Tornow denies that he 
 had received anything of the sort. From one, then, I say we 
 may judge of all. It is clear, too, that the name of Giffard was 
 known to some persons concerned in the case, but there is no 
 evidence that that name was ever used to Clarke, or known to 
 him. Kurr says that on the evening of the loth of October he 
 saw Clarke, as he wanted to prevent further inquiries being 
 made at the Midland Station, and arranged with Clarke to send 
 Von Tornow there, and that, in pursuance of that arrangement, 
 he went to the station next morning, where he met Von Tornow 
 and gave him a bribe of ^10 or ^15 in gold. Can that be true ? 
 I have called Von Tornow before you, and I hold that he is 
 entitled to be believed when he says, not only that it is untrue 
 that he ever received a bribe from Kurr at the Midland Station, 
 but that he was not there, and was engaged in looking after the 
 case of the ship, City of Bombay, in Leman-street, Whitechapel ; 
 that in that duty he slept the previous night at a public-house 
 in Leman-street, prosecuted his inquiries the next morning, and 
 then went to Scotland Yard, from which he was sent to Barking. 
 Thus he accounts for the whole day. On the one side we have 
 the unsupported word of Kurr, and on the other the non- 
 corroboration of the telegram, the denial of Clarke himself, and 
 the detailed narrative of Von Tornow. I think, therefore, I 
 may say that this story is pure invention from beginning to end.
 
 86 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 There are four other interviews alleged to have taken place 
 at the Duke of York's Column. Of the first of them the date is 
 not fixed, but it has been suggested that it was on the i4th or 
 1 5th of November. Then a conversation is alleged to have 
 taken place in reference to the ports from which Benson might 
 be able to escape. Kurr says that when he saw Clarke he had 
 already told Benson on the i3th that he was to go by London- 
 derry or Larne, and that he asked Clarke if he had sent out 
 any notices. But as to this date, the I4th November, I find 
 that Clarke made a journey to Uxbridge that day ; while as to 
 the 1 5th, there is an important contradiction. You are asked 
 to believe that Clarke had an interview with Kurr on that 
 day, and that he was watched by Palmer ; but it has been 
 proved, on behalf of Palmer, that he was clearly not there, 
 and so far as Clarke is concerned and the date mentioned, I 
 must leave you to judge of the truth of the statement made by 
 Kurr. 
 
 The next alleged interview is that of the 3Oth November, 
 1876, when Kurr says he again met Clarke at the Duke of 
 York's Column. Now the way in which I deal with that is, 
 that Kurr, finding it convenient to try another trick, wants to 
 make you believe that Clarke was untrue to his duty, and con- 
 spired to defeat the ends of justice. So he tells you that on 
 the 3oth November Clarke told him that they had searched 
 Murray's house, and that Walters was there, but they had 
 allowed him to escape. Is this an invention or not? Did 
 Clarke ever tell such a story to anybody ? If he did, he is the 
 most extraordinary man that ever stood in that dock. Gentle- 
 men, it is an utterly untrue story. I have proved it to be untrue 
 by the witness whom I called before you. If Clarke said that 
 he said what was untrue, and by that I ask you to judge of the 
 truth of the statement. There were other persons there, and 
 Sergeants Littlechild and Robson both say that no one was 
 allowed to escape. 
 
 The ninth interview was alleged to have taken place on the 
 loth December, 1876, and as to that I have called before you 
 Mr. Norfolk, a gentleman living at Boston, who had not been 
 in London for nine years, and would, therefore, have special 
 reason for remembering his visit. He tells you that evening 
 after evening during that Christmas week Mr. Clarke was in 
 his company, showing him the sights of London. You have no 
 reason for disbelieving him ; and he telJs you that on the even- 
 ing on which William Kurr says he met Clarke at the Duke of 
 York's Column, Clarke spent the whole evening with him at 
 the Aquarium at Westminster ; and that on the 3ist they were 
 together at Knightsbridge. William Kurr says that he was 
 arrested on his way to the meeting with Clarke ; and if that
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 87 
 
 were so, Clarke, not knowing of the arrest, would have kept the 
 appointment, if appointment had been made. 
 
 As to that evening, I call one witness more to speak to the 
 lies of Kurr, and that is William Kurr himself when he was 
 telling Mr. Pollard his story a story so graphic that it will not 
 easily be forgotten of the way in which he \\ent out to meet 
 Sawyer in the empty house in Essex-road, with a revolver and 
 the made-up cash box. He first said he was going to meet 
 Sawyer, and subsequently that he was going to meet Clarke. 
 
 Of the ten alleged meetings, I have shown you, with the ex- 
 ception of two, those of December 8th, 1876, and November 
 I4th, or 1 5th, as I pledged myself to do, either that, as a 
 matter of fact, the interviews did not take place, or that they 
 could not have taken place. And if the allegation is proved to 
 be untrue as to eight of these alleged meetings, you have no 
 right to accept an uncorroborated story in regard to the two 
 others. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have dealt as fully as can be necessary with the 
 direct evidence given by Benson and Kurr ; and so far as there 
 has been heard, in the course of the evidence called before you, 
 any incidental corroboration, or rather suggested corroboration, 
 of the truth of the specific statements, with which I have had to 
 deal, I have, to the best of my power, completely examined that 
 evidence. The result is, as I hope I have shown you, that 
 there is no corroboration of the charge, and so far from that the 
 witnesses who were called to corroborate have in many instances 
 done substantial service to my client by the incidental support 
 which they gave to his statement with regard to the matter. 
 
 But it was suggested to you by the learned Attorney-General in 
 opening the case, that there was another sort of corroboration 
 that you had to deal with; that apart from the truth or falsehood 
 of the specific statements which Kurr and Benson may have 
 made, there were little matters of conduct on the part of Clarke 
 which led to the conclusion that he had a guilty knowledge of the 
 guilty parties. The Attorney-General mentioned two or three 
 matters of the kind with which you would have to deal. The alibi 
 was one of them, and upon that I hope I have said all that it was 
 necessary to say. The question of the letter that was written 
 from Scotland Yard on the 3rd of October was another ; and it 
 was suggested to you that because on the evening of that date 
 Inspector Clarke, as the officer in charge, sent a letter, in 
 which the number of certain notes were given as notes that 
 were to be stopped, instead of a telegram, it was an act of 
 culpable negligence, which must show you that he was a party 
 to the fraud that was going on. To what does that come when 
 you examine it by the light of the evidence that has been 
 given ? Clarke was not responsible for the actual conduct of the
 
 88 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 case to which the letter referred, and it is not the custom of 
 inspectors at the office to interfere with the conduct of a case 
 that is in the hands of another of equal or almost equal rank. 
 You hear from the person who wrote that letter that Clarke 
 was sitting in the office, and signed the letter simply as the 
 inspector in charge. It may be suggested, in the reply in this 
 case, that the information ought to have been given before the 
 letter was sent ; that at a date previous to the 3rd of October 
 information was in the possession of persons at Scotland Yard, 
 which should have been communicated to Scotland. But the 
 latter question, as far as relates to Clarke's deeds, turns on that 
 letter. That letter was written late in the afternoon, and you 
 have the evidence of Superintendent Williamson that if an 
 officer were to write to Scotland after banking hours about notes 
 which were to be stopped, the letter, in the regular course of 
 post, would be as useful as a telegram, being in time for the 
 opening of the bank next morning. I say that the answer of 
 Superintendent Williamson, in regard to that, absolutely dis- 
 charges Clarke from any fault in respect to the sending of that 
 letter. How it is possible out of that incident to extort any 
 sort of corroboration of the story which involves Clarke in 
 complicity with these men, I confess I am at a loss to dis- 
 cover. 
 
 There are other trivial things, and it may seem to you that I 
 am spending the time unnecessarily on them. But you know 
 that what the Attorney-General says in opening a case is not to 
 be set aside as unimportant. I may have to hear the observa- 
 tions repeated, and it is absolutely necessary that I should deal 
 with them once for all. It is suggested to you that the 
 envelope posted on the roth of November with a piece of 
 blotting-paper with the words, " Keep the lame man out of the 
 way," was from Clarke. But by whom was it posted ? There is 
 not one scrap of evidence, from beginning to end, that it was 
 by Clarke except if this be an exception that statement of Kurr 
 in which he contradicted himself. Kurr swears here that he 
 gave the addressed envelopes to Clarke, but he told Mr. 
 Pollard, of the Treasury, that he gave them to Street. I say- 
 there is not one scrap or tittle of evidence to connect this with 
 Clarke. The prosecution have, quite fairly and properly, put 
 this matter into the hands of experts, and they have had a 
 specimen of Clarke's handwriting. The experts were not here 
 to be challenged, but a witness who came into the box was 
 thoroughly acquainted with Clarke's handwriting. I asked 
 Superintendent Williamson, who has known Clarke for twenty 
 years, and knew his handwriting as well as any man could, and 
 he expressed the opinion that there was no writing of Clarke's 
 in any of the documents. Only one thing more was mentioned
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 89 
 
 in the opening remarks that I have to deal with, viz., the 
 matter of the French directory. You were told that Clarke at 
 Scotland Yard had a directory brought to him which was found 
 by Sergeant Lambert at lodgings which some of the convicts 
 had occupied, and that it contained memoranda which showed 
 the operations of the swindlers in sending out circulars. You 
 were told that Clarke, when the directory was wanted at the 
 police-court, sent the wrong one. But what proof has been 
 submitted to you on the point? It is proved that the directory 
 was found at Miss White's, who kept the lodgings, and that 
 Lambert handed it to Clarke as inspector in charge at Scotland 
 Yard, and not as inspector in charge of the case. Then you 
 have the further evidence that the whole of the papers, books, 
 and documents in this case were in the hands of another 
 person. A separate desk was kept in which the materials to be 
 used in this case were placed. Clarke had no concern or duty 
 whatever with reference to these papers or documents, for they 
 were to be looked after by the officer in charge of the case, and 
 there is no evidence before you with regard to the sending of 
 the directory to the police-court that Clarke was the person 
 who sent it, that he was in the office when it was sent, or that 
 he had anything to do with the sending of it. 
 
 These are the matters that have been mentioned in the way 
 I have described as matters of corroboration, and I ask you 
 how you are to deal with them. Is it not pitiful to see the first 
 law officer of the Crown sprinkling over with surmises and 
 suspicion of this kind that garbage of evidence that is supposed 
 to tell against Clarke? The Attorney-General is not simply 
 the leader of the Bar, but he is the model of the Bar. He, in 
 the discharge of his duties, not merely by his position, but by 
 his personal conduct is a model which younger men strive to 
 follow. We may not all get to his great place, but we may 
 hope in our different careers to emulate the vigour of the 
 advocate, and to emulate the fairness which speaks in almost 
 every observation that he makes to a jury ; and, gentlemen, I 
 appeal to him to unsay, when he comes to speak to you, the 
 words which in the opening of this case pointed suspicion 
 to Clarke in respect to these matters. I trust that when 
 he comes to address himself to the question of the evidence 
 against Clarke, he will admit that for these suggestions there 
 was really no ground ; that the whole matter against him rests 
 on the result of the analysis of the evidence which has been 
 given before you the analysis that I have tried to make this 
 morning. 
 
 I hope I have shown you that the story put before you is, as 
 far as my client's acts are concerned, unsubstantiated, and that 
 it only wants to be thoroughly and critically examined in order
 
 90 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 to crumble to pieces under the test that you have to apply. I 
 said I was not going to complain, but I must show you the way 
 in which, when these accusations were first made, Clarke dealt 
 with them. At that time he was in the employ of the 
 Government, discharging his duties, and trusted as usual, at 
 Scotland Yard. Day by day statements were made by the 
 convicts at Bow-street police-court affecting his honour and 
 integrity. The Attorney-General has said that Clarke made 
 several statements, but that he did not tell all at once the story 
 of his connection with Benson at Shanklin. Taken altogether, 
 his reports give the complete history of the transaction. All 
 Clarke had to deal with were the statements as they came out, 
 and he did so with the prayer that he might be allowed to 
 meet the accusations at once, that he might employ a solicitor, 
 write to the papers, and have inquiries of every kind set on 
 foot, and that he should have, at least, copies of the statements 
 made affecting his character. He asked, too, that the reports 
 and statements should be laid before the law officers of the 
 Crown. The one thing in which I think he has been treated 
 hardly in this case is, that the claim to know what were the 
 words in which these men clothed their accusations has not been 
 acceded to, as to this day he has never seen the statement that 
 William Kurr has made. I, his counsel, could only obtain this 
 statement by sending accusations broadcast over the country 
 against other persons accusations as foul and scandalous as 
 those which you have to deal with in this case. The charge 
 was made against an innocent man ; and meeting it as an 
 innocent man, he stands to ask your verdict. I hope I have 
 done my duty by him, and that what I have said on his behalf 
 has in some manner helped those who are standing with him in 
 the dock, for it is impossible for me not to feel that the demon- 
 stration I have offered to you of the manifold falsehood that 
 has been attempted to be palmed off on you must to some extent 
 destroy the evidence so far as it concerns the other prisoners. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, it is hardly necessary for me to say more 
 after urging the facts upon you in defence of Clarke. It is a 
 very grave and serious issue that you have to face. These 
 convicts have been before you confessing to a career of crime 
 confessing up to the latest moment having schemed, and 
 plotted, and lied in all directions sparing not reputation, 
 sparing not the interest of their accomplices, sparing nothing in 
 order to secure themselves an escape from the punishment 
 their wickedness has brought upon them. They are men who 
 for years have been growing in crime, whose greatest turf fraud 
 up till now was the " Association of Insurance against Losses 
 on the Turf," gentlemen, the greatest turf fraud till now, for this 
 is the great turf swindle. This is the great coup by which the
 
 DEFENCE OF GEORGE CLARKE 91 
 
 swindlers hope to crown a career of crime, when themselves 
 locked up with no hope but to persuade you that the reputation 
 of these men has been an empty bubble, being but pretenders 
 to a reputation they did not deserve their last hope that they 
 may take out of the way of the swindlers with whom they have 
 been associated for years the intellect and the honesty and the 
 experience of the man who has for years been their baffler. 
 And all he asks of you to do, now that this fraud is attempted 
 to be palmed off on you, is that you will deal with it precisely 
 as he has dealt in his long career with the frauds that have 
 threatened the interests of .the public. As he has unsparingly, 
 firmly, and energetically tracked them to their source, has faced 
 them, and has punished them, so do you act, and expose and 
 punish this fraud, by driving the conspirators back to the 
 punishment that they so well deserve. 
 
 Gentlemen, I confess when I saw these men standing in the 
 witness-box, when I heard Kurr, with the merry twinkle in his 
 eye and the curl of his lip, telling the story of all this scheme of 
 frauds, with the laughter of an unthinking court around me, I 
 could not help thinking how often there has been a very 
 different scene in this court : how often the young lad who has 
 scarcely left; his home and home-training has stood in the dock 
 to receive the sentence that blasts every hope of his life, 
 because he has been led and tempted into crime by such men 
 as these. And when they come here and attempt to palm off 
 on you their infamous tales, it is time that you should deal 
 firmly. Do let truth and reason blow through this court, and 
 clear the air of all this pestilential atmosphere that "has been 
 round us during the weeks we have spent here. 
 
 There are large issues on your verdict. I am not going to 
 threaten you with the consequences of that verdict. I believe 
 that you are too true to your duty to be disturbed either by an 
 appeal to pity or a warning note of appeal as to the 
 consequences. But still the issues are very large, and if you 
 allow surmises and suspicions to eke out the scanty story of 
 the perjurers, the liberty of every honest man amongst us will 
 be imperilled, for you make him hold that liberty at the mercy of 
 the worst of individuals around you. Gentlemen, the issues of 
 the trial are widespread, and you have a right to remember 
 mind, I am not speaking of the consequences to my client of 
 the ruin of the reputation that I defend to-day, the agony of 
 those who have loved him as the husband and father, and of 
 those who have honoured and cherished him as a friend that 
 there are thousands of men in the same profession which he has 
 adorned, doing their duty quietly and patiently, and looking 
 with very earnest hopes to the result of this trial. Day by day, 
 with their scanty pay, with very little opportunity for distinction
 
 92 THE DETECTIVE CASE 
 
 or reward, carrying their lives in their hands for they are 
 dealing with the worst enemies of society these men do their 
 steadfast work of duty, and the broad cloth covers a heart as 
 true to the devotion of duty as the judge's ermine or the 
 bishop's lawn. And if these men, when they hear the result of 
 this trial, find that there is no faith in honesty in an English 
 jury, and lhat their reputations, however high, their services, 
 however good, will avail them nothing against the extorted tale 
 of miscreants like those you have heard, do you think they will 
 go forth as usual to discharge their duty for the protection of 
 society of you and me ? When 'that verdict is given, if it 
 should be against these men, the whole army of scoundrels 
 amongst us will rejoice, carousing over the thought that the 
 defences of society are broken, that the men who have been 
 foremost in attacking them are stricken down, and that they 
 may be free for a carnival of crime. 
 
 Gentlemen, you, I know, will do your duty ; but while it is 
 part of your duty clearly and peremptorily to pronounce Guilty 
 when guilt is well established, it is the highest and best privilege 
 you have to scout from the judgment-seat the perjured witness, 
 and to send out the innocent man to the world with an un- 
 challengeable verdict of Not Guilty, to hold up before his fellows. 
 Judge in this case as you yourselves would be judged. Use dili- 
 gence, discretion, and discrimination in dealing with the verdict; 
 and I do hope confidently I trust it is not the mere advocate's 
 feeling that speaks in my words at this moment that Clarke 
 may go out from this court, not discharged because a jury 
 could not agree ; not with some bastard verdict of Not Proven, 
 to hang round his neck for the rest of his life the irremovable 
 stigma of suspicion of crime ; but with the straightforward 
 honest Not Guilty that sends him back to his friends an 
 honoured man ; that sends him back, for the rest of his life to 
 enjoy the " love, obedience, honour, troops of friends, and all 
 that should accompany old age " ; to leave to his children when 
 he goes an heirloom richer than wealth can purchase, grander 
 than power can create the splendid heritage of an unsullied 
 name.
 
 THE 
 
 TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT. 
 
 ON Monday, I2th April, 1886, Adelaide Rartlett and the Rev. 
 G. Dyson were put upon their trial at the Central Criminal 
 Court, before Mr. Justice Wills, charged \\ith the wilful 
 murder of Thomas Edwin Bartlett, the husband of the 
 former prisoner. The prosecution was conducted by Sir 
 Charles Russell (Attorney-General), Mr. Poland, Mr. R. S. 
 Wright, and Mr. Maloney. Mrs. Bartlett was defended by 
 Mr. Edward Clarke, Q.C., M.P., Mr. Frederick Mead and 
 Mr. Edward Beal. Before the arraignment of the prisoners 
 Mr. Frank Lockwood, Q.C., M.P., who appeared with Mr. 
 Charles Matthews for the Rev. G. Dyson, applied that they 
 should be tried separately, and the Attorney-General then 
 stated that the Crown did not propose to offer any evidence 
 against Mr. Dyson. Upon arraignment a verdict of Not 
 Guilty was taken in his case, and he was discharged from 
 custody, and was subsequently called as a witness against 
 Mrs. Bartlett. The trial lasted six days and ended in an 
 acquittal.] 
 
 The following speech was delivered on the fifth day of the 
 trial : 
 
 Mr. EDWARD CLARKE : May it please you, my lord, gentle- 
 men of the jury, In this case you have now heard, in its fullest 
 detail, the evidence which the Crown has to lay before you in 
 support of this charge, and, having heard that evidence, and 
 believing that I have been able, to some extent, to trace the 
 effect of it upon your minds, I now, in Adelaide Bartlett's name, 
 claim from you a verdict of Not Guilty. It may be thought 
 that I am speaking too confidently in using that sentence. 
 Some of my friends might think that I had had sufficient experi-
 
 94 
 
 ence of the sad uncertainties of the administration of the Criminal 
 law to induce me to pause before I used an expression which only 
 the strongest confidence would justify. But, gentlemen, I think I 
 shall justify that claim in the most absolute and complete form, 
 I believe that when I have taken you, as it will be my duty to 
 take you, through the record of the evidence of suspicion which 
 has pointed to her guilt, and through that evidence more 
 recently given, and which has, I think I shall show you, gone, 
 nearly to demonstrating her innocence, I think you will recognise 
 that my claim is not too confident, and that it is a claim which 
 you will admit and indorse. 
 
 Gentlemen, I fear I shall have to detain you some time in 
 discussing this case, for one reason, which only applies to 
 cases where the Attorney- or Solicitor-General appears for the 
 prosecution. There is a strange anomaly in the procedure in 
 such cases. In the ordinary cases which are subjects of accusa- 
 tion and defence in these courts, where the prosecution has pro- 
 duced all its evidence, and where, as occurs in nine cases 
 out often, the prisoner not being allowed to give evidence, no 
 evidence is offered, or can be offered, on the part of the de- 
 fence in all those cases, at the end of the evidence for the pro- 
 secution, the counsel who asks the jury, in the name of the 
 Crown, to accept the charge that has been made, has then and 
 there, at the close of the evidence, to point out to the jury the 
 facts upon which he relies, to indicate upon what ground of 
 suspicion or of evidence it is that he feels entitled to ask them 
 for a verdict of Guilty ; and when he has so pointed out the 
 grounds upon which, in his judgment and contention, that verdict 
 could be justified, it is then the right of the counsel for the 
 prisoner to make answer to the suggestions so put. But, 
 strangely enough, in those cases in which the privilege and 
 right is most important to the prisoner, the practice of our pro- 
 cedure takes it away ; and although I call no witnesses, though 
 I have to content myself with comments upon the evidence put 
 before you, when I have finished, the leader of the English bar 
 will have to answer me, will have an opportunity I do not say 
 that he will use it of pointing to topics of suspicion or of proof, 
 which I may not have appreciated, upon which, if he were to 
 make his statement now as Counsel for the prosecution, if this 
 were some trivial case, such as those cases which are often tried 
 in the other courts, if he had to make that statement now, I 
 should hear the comments, and might be able to answer them, 
 but they will come to you when my lips are closed. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is an anomalous privilege, and I do not hesitate 
 to say, as I have said in this court before, that I hope an 
 Attorney- General may be found some day, unless the law is 
 altered, as it should be, to abandon the exercise of a right which.
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 95 
 
 does riot seem to me to be defensible. It has always been felt 
 by the Attorney-General that the exercise of that right has t > 
 be under strict conditions ; and nearly one hundred years ago 
 a great Attorney-General, afterwards an illustrious Judge, speak- 
 ing as Sir John Scott, said that the principles upon which the 
 Attorney-General spoke in a case of this kind were principles 
 which forbade the exhibition of zeal on his part. I know that 
 my learned friend will endeavour to be as fair in his reply as he 
 was in his opening ; but I know well, by my own experience 
 of the conduct of cases where one meets in forensic combat I 
 know that there is an instinct of antagonism aroused, in which the 
 strongest determination to be absolutely impartial and fair can- 
 not by any of us be trusted to clear him from prejudice or from 
 passion. And my learned friend, coming from a country dis- 
 tinguished far more for its advocates than for its judges, may 
 import that combative instinct into the conduct of this case. 
 
 Gentlemen, that consideration obliges me to deal with all the 
 topics that are before you, because, if I were to leave any out, it 
 might suggest itself to your minds, or it might be suggested, 
 that I had avoided a difficulty ; and unless I met, as far as 1 
 could, all the suggestions which appear to me to arise upon the 
 facts which have been put before you, I should run the most 
 grievous risk a risk not for myself, for it is a matter of no 
 moment to me what comment might be made on my speech or 
 my advocacy, but risk to one whose interests are present to me 
 at this moment in a very far higher degree than any considera- 
 tion that can attach to myself. 
 
 Gentlemen, whatever the history of our medical jurisprudence 
 may be, this case will long be remembered. There have been 
 incidents in it, there have been topics dwelt upon, which will 
 not easily be forgotten by any of those who interest themselves 
 in the administration of the criminal law, or in subjects of medical 
 science and of medical jurisprudence. 
 
 We have had certainly strange incidents. I do not speak 
 now of those remarkable relations which appear to have existed 
 between Mr. Bartlett and his wife relations which would be 
 almost inconceivable if they had not been, as here they are, 
 proved to be true. Nor do I speak at this moment of that 
 other most remarkable incident in this case, which gave to the 
 proceedings of the second day an intensely dramatic interest, 
 when the man who had passed, with the consent and sanction 
 of the Crown, from his place in the dock, who had been, by 
 their consent and upon their invitation, declared by your 
 verdict to be free from any imputation of crime in this matter, 
 stood in that witness-box and heard the question which was put 
 by my learned friend Mr. Poland, with a rhetorical point which 
 I do not think was present to his mind when he asked it,
 
 96 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BART LETT 
 
 " You gave your evidence before the coroner and then she 
 was arrested." He passed from the dock to the witness-box, 
 and it is in great measure upon the evidence that he has given 
 that you are asked to rely in support of the charge against Mrs. 
 Bartlett. 
 
 But, gentlemen, there is another consideration which I think 
 has been present to your minds. It is a marvellous thing that 
 you are asked by the prosecution to accept you are Basked 
 and when I use that phrase I do not mean that you will be 
 urged, but what I do mean is, that this is what you must accept 
 if you accept the idea of guilt or the contention of guilt you 
 are asked to believe that a woman who, for years, had lived in 
 friendship and affection with her husband ; who, during the 
 whole time of his illness, had striven to tend him, to nurse him, 
 and to help him ; who had tended him by day, who had 
 sacrificed her own rest to watch over him at night, had spent 
 night after night without going to her restful bed, simply giving 
 to herself sleep at the bottom of his couch that she might be 
 ready by him to comfort him by her presence ; who had called 
 doctors, who had taken all the pains that the most tender and 
 affectionate nurse possibly could, that by no possibility any 
 chance should be lost of the doctor's ascertaining what his 
 trouble was, and having the quickest means to cure it that 
 woman who had watched over him, had tried to cheer him, had 
 talked of going away, had talked lightly when they were 
 together before the doctor in order to give spirits to that 
 husband you are asked to imagine that that woman on New 
 Year's Eve was suddenly transformed into a murderess, com- 
 mitting crime, not only without excuse, but absolutely without 
 any object you are asked to believe that by a sort of inspira- 
 tion she succeeds in committing that crime by the execution of 
 a delicate and difficult operation, an operation which would 
 have been delicate and difficult to the highest trained doctor 
 that this country has in it. 
 
 There is another aspect in which this case will be of abiding 
 interest, and the observation which I have just made leads me 
 to it. This is the first case that the world has ever heard of in 
 which it has been suggested that a person has been murdered 
 by the administration of liquid chloroform. Just let me ask you 
 to consider what a tremendous effect that proposition and that 
 fact ought to have upon your judgment. Forty years ago it was 
 discovered that by the administration of chloroform a state of 
 insensibility might be produced during which the most terrible 
 operations could be performed on the human frame without 
 pain being suffered from the operation, and it was recognised, 
 by all the members of that great profession which devotes 
 itself to the study and to the treatment of human suffering, that
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 97 
 
 here a great boon, a great blessing, had been found for man, 
 and that many lives might be saved which would have passed 
 away under the intense agony of the surgeon's knife, or even at 
 the very thought of what that agony might be ; and for the last 
 forty years this chloroform, its qualities and effects, the mode 
 of administration, the symptoms of the patient, the results either 
 for life or death, have been a constant subject of inquiry by the 
 medical profession. 
 
 Gentlemen, you have had the good fortune to see in the 
 witness-box two of the greatest living authorities upon these 
 subjects. Than Dr. Stevenson and Dr. Tidy no witnesses 
 could be brought here of greater authority as to the history and 
 as to the character of this substance ; and I know those two 
 gentlemen well enough to know that when they go into the wit- 
 ness-box they, at all events, are absolutely clear from bias or 
 prejudice with respect to the case in which they are called, 
 and that they, speaking from the witness-box, speak with a due 
 and strong sense of responsibility for the evidence they are 
 giving. Gentlemen, you have had the best information which 
 you could possibly get on this subject, and what does it come 
 to ? that never, during those forty years, has there been a case 
 of murder by chloroform. There have been cases of death by 
 chloroform there have been cases of death from the swallowing 
 of liquid chloroform. In the great majority of those cases 
 death may have been death by suicide ; in all the others, they 
 have been death by the accidental taking or administration of 
 that drug. There is no case recorded in the books. But during 
 those forty years there have been criminals in this country and 
 in other countries who would have used that poison if it had 
 been possible or likely to succeed. There have been men who 
 have committed murders, who have been supplied with all the 
 medical knowledge and experience that would be required for 
 the purpose of the successful administration of this poison. 
 There is no case of the kind, and you are called upon now it is 
 suggested to you that you should say that Adelaide Bartlett has 
 committed an offence absolutely unknown in the history of 
 medical jurisprudence, and the possibility of which has never 
 been suggested in any book on this subject so far as we know 
 never. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, let us just consider for a moment what this 
 means. These forty years having passed, I think you under- 
 stand now how it is for it has been your lot to listen yesterday 
 and to-day to an exposition of all that is known on this subject 
 from Dr. Stevenson and Dr. Tidy I think you understand the 
 reasons why chloroform never has been used, and probably 
 never will be used, Tor the purpose of murder. The ad- 
 ministration of liquid chloroform is singularly variable in its 
 
 G
 
 98 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 effects. Instances are given where large doses of liquid chloro- 
 form have been taken, and the patient has lived afterwards. 
 We hear of cases of persons swallowing two ounces, four 
 ounces I think I saw a case in that list of six ounces of 
 liquid chloroform, and yet of life being retained. There seems 
 no rule at all : one case will give you the instance of a man who 
 swallows liquid chloroform and walks for a considerable 
 distance after he has done so ; another, a case which has 
 attracted special notice in the list Dr. Stevenson supplied us 
 with, a case where a man, twenty-six years of age, takes a very 
 much smaller dose of chloroform, and in three minutes' he is 
 in a heavy sleep ; so that, as to its fatal effects, there are all 
 sorts of variety. And there is also the same variety as to the 
 symptoms. It may produce immediate or almost immediate 
 coma ; it may produce convulsions ; it may produce with an 
 ordinary dose, vomiting ; it may, so far as I can see, produce 
 no immediate effects at all ; in fact, the summing-up of the 
 whole matter, the whole testimony of medical science with 
 regard to chloroform, is that its administration requires to be 
 watched with so great care in order to adjust it to the 
 characteristics of the patient that its effects, whether inhaled 
 or swallowed, are so various in character that it is not alto- 
 gether a trustworthy agent for producing anaesthesia. It has 
 already been succeeded by another, the administration of which 
 is believed to be free from some of the difficulties and dangers 
 which attend the administration of chloroform, and medical 
 science can only say that its effects are so uncertain that its 
 administration cannot be undertaken without great care and 
 study. 
 
 But now, gentlemen, let me go a step farther. If you were 
 dealing with a case of the fatal inhalation of chloroform, there 
 would not be the same difficulty. Science tells us that the 
 stories of immediate insensibility produced by chloroform are 
 mere fables, because, if chloroform be administered in an over- 
 dose so strong, with so slight an admixture of air, that it at once 
 produces insensibility, that insensibility means immediate death. 
 It is not here a question of death by the inhalation of chloro- 
 form ; I shall have occasion presently to point out to you that if 
 a person were trying to commit a murder by chloroform, and 
 administered any chloroform to the victim so as to produce even 
 partial anaesthesia, that they would almost certainly, either with 
 medical knowledge or without medical knowledge, go on with 
 the administration of the inhaled chloroform and produce fatal 
 effects ; and it is impossible to suppose that a person, with 
 medical knowledge or without medical knowledge, either knowing 
 all these difficult details or not, would interrupt the process of 
 anaesthesia, which if continued, must result in death, in order
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE <& 
 
 to attempt another and a difficult process, the immediate result 
 of which might be to destroy the anaesthetic influence which had 
 already been produced, and to revive the patient to the capacity 
 of sensation or resistance. 
 
 But, gentlemen, it is not death from inhalation of chloro- 
 form that is here suggested, it is death by chloroform poured 
 down the throat ; and although, of course, there can be no 
 admission made by counsel in cases of this kind, yet looking 
 at the evidence and looking at the great authority of Dr. 
 Stevenson and Dr. Tidy, it seems to me perfectly clear 
 if I am entitled to say so that there was in the stomach 
 of Mr. Bartlett a sufficient quantity of chloroform to indi- 
 cate that he had taken what might have been a fatal dose. 
 There are all sorts of limitations to that. No one can define 
 what a fatal dose is. A fatal dose has sometimes been very 
 small, and a large quantity has sometimes not produced death ; 
 but, seeing how small a quantity has sometimes on some 
 occasions produced that fatal effect, it is impossible, I think, to 
 suggest that the quant' ty which Dr. Stevenson found in the 
 stomach did not indicate that death might have been caused by 
 chloroform administered by the mouth. There are questions 
 with regard to the condition of the mouth, and of the upper part 
 of the throat, and of the throat, and of the air-passages, upon 
 which, of course, I shall have a word to say at another time ; 
 but, for the moment, it seems to me that Dr. Stevenson's evidence 
 is conclusive that there was sufficient chloroform in the stomach 
 to indicate that a dose which might have been fatal had been 
 taken, and there are no appearances which point to death from 
 any other cause. 
 
 But, when we have taken that step, just observe how very 
 serious is the next step which has to be taken by the prosecution. 
 My learned friend the Attorney-General recognised it, and 
 himself expressed the difficulty, at the end of his opening in 
 this case, because he said chloroform could not be administered 
 by the throat to a resisting person so as to cause death: 
 and he said murder could not be done by chloroform being 
 poured down the throat of any person unless he had previously 
 been reduced to a condition, substantially, of insensibility, unless 
 there had been a previous inhalation of chloroform, he being 
 unwilling, and I do not think my learned friend is going to 
 suggest acquiescence on the part of Mr. Bartlett. 
 
 The ATTORNEY-GENERAL : Certainly not. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : Because he said it could not be poured down, 
 he being unwilling, so that the person must have been reduced 
 by inhalation to a condition in which swallowing was possible, 
 and where also the power of resistance had disappeared. Now 
 let us see what step this is you are asked to take. You cannot
 
 100 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 come, according to this suggestion or theory, to the conclusion 
 that Mrs. Bartlett committed this crime unless you come to the 
 Conclusion that she first, by the administration of chloroform by 
 inhalation, produced insensibility, and that she then poured 
 down the insensible and unresisting throat the substance that 
 caused the death. Well, but the moment that that suggestion 
 is made, we have before us almost an impossibility. I have put 
 myself in a position in this case to be able, without hesitation 
 or fear, to challenge Dr. Stevenson and Dr. Tidy with respect 
 to any matter contained in the recognised books of authority 
 in England, and I have put the question to them as to an anaes- 
 thesia produced during sleep. The suggestion is (and you 
 must accept every step of it if you are to say that this accusation 
 is proved) that, Mr. Bartlett being asleep, chloroform is 
 administered to him by inhalation, which reducts him to a state 
 of sufficient insensibility to prevent his resisting the administra- 
 tion of liquid chloroform, and that, being in that state, it is done. 
 Why, gentlemen, that process is surrounded by difficulties, and 
 by difficulties of a most serious kind. Look at the veiy fiist 
 step, the administration of chloroform by inhalation to a sleeping 
 person. I asked Dr. Stevenson : Is there any record in the 
 English books upon this matter? There is not, except by refer- 
 ence. One of those references is in Taylor's book on poisons, 
 and it is the reference to a French authority which book lies 
 before me and the sentence in which this French authority 
 disposes of this question of the administration of chloroform by 
 inhalation to a sleeping person points out the substantial im- 
 possibility of such administration it points out, at all events, 
 this : that such administration would involve the great over- 
 whelming probability that the person would awake and resist. 
 This French authority speaks of experiments, and you will 
 observe that the record of all these experiments is a record of 
 experiments made by skilled chloroformists, familiar with the 
 operation of chloroform and the administration of anaesthetics, 
 according to their best experience and under the most favourable 
 conditions, and administering it, one cannot doubt, only to 
 persons whom they had noticed as being patients upon whom it 
 would be likely to produce a satisfactory effect, because it will 
 be perfectly clear to you that no physician would venture to try 
 and administer chloroform to a sleeping person unless he 
 believed that that person was of a character and idiosyncrasy to 
 be satisfactorily operated upon ; otherwise there would be, what 
 you have been told in one of these cases, the sudden awakening 
 to resistance, and the objection, " You are trying to give 
 me something," and so the failure of the operation. Now, 
 these cases are attempts by skilled persons, under the best 
 conditions and most carefully done ; and, of the cases which
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 101 
 
 this French authority has been able to record, in 75 per cent, 
 the persons awakened when the attempt was made, and the 
 summing-up of the French authority on this matter is that it is 
 possible to administer scientifically let me read the passage 
 again : " It is difficult, but often possible, to render persons who 
 are in natural sleep insensible by chloroform with certain pre- 
 cautions : the employment of a pure spirit" then come the 
 words " Grande habitude," which I translated yesterday 
 "great skill" but am not sure they are not better translated 
 " long, or great, practice are among the conditions which may 
 favour the attempt to chloroform in that way." Then he goes 
 on to say : " It is possible that certain subjects are absolutely 
 refractory that is to say, it will be impossible to anaesthetise 
 them in spite of all the precautions that may be taken. Other 
 persons, on the contrary, and little children by preference, will 
 submit to anaesthetics without being aroused from their slumber 
 by the irritation that the anaesthetic agent produces in the air- 
 passages." 
 
 Substantially that is the summing up of that authority. Now, 
 I asked Dr. Stevenson : Can you give me any other authority? 
 There is no English one, and I confess I have not followed the 
 American authoriries on the subject with which we are now 
 dealing. But there is no American authority in the shape of a 
 treatise. " Wharton and Stille," the book I produced yesterday, 
 is a book referred to in one of our English treatises, and that 
 gives the experiences of a doctor who, giving evidence at a trial, 
 spoke of the attempts that he made. He had made the attempt 
 on several persons on six persons; experiments with chloroform 
 on six sleeping persons ; and out of that number all resisted more 
 or less. Two were awakened up immediately, and one remarked, 
 " You are trying to give me something." 
 
 " So far with regard to the authorities upon that subject. Dr. 
 Stevenson referred me to one other authority, and I followed it ; 
 and this morning he has brought the book. I find now that this 
 exactly bears out the letter from Mr. Dobson, and exactly bears 
 out the opinion given in the French book that is to say, it 
 indicates there is difficulty in the administration, and it speaks 
 of the administration of chloroform in this way having been 
 represented to be very rare, and it describes the operation of 
 removing tumour from the side of the knee and the thigh, and 
 here again you have young persons. I think there is one more 
 reference, and that is in Dr. Tidy's own book. It is a reference 
 to the Lancet, and by the kindness of the editors of the Lancet, 
 a set of Lancets for 1872 were put at my disposal yesterday. I 
 turn to that to see what it gives, and I find it refers entirely to 
 the administration of chloroform during sleep to children, and I 
 find this (which is of greaj. importance with respect to this
 
 102 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 matter), that the doctor who so had administered it to children, 
 goes on to say, " The only precaution I ever found necessary to 
 prevent them from awaking with the first inspiration of the 
 chloroform was that the inhaler should first be held at a moderate 
 distance from the child's face, and gradually approached nearer 
 until the requisite degree of anaesthesia was produced, which 
 would be judged of by the usual signs." 
 
 There is only one more observation to be made on this, and 
 it exhausts the whole subject. This morning we have had Dr. 
 Tidy himself here, and we have had from him the record given 
 with that absolute impartiality with which science speaks when 
 it goes, in the person of its distinguished representatives, into 
 the witness-box to inform and advise a judge and jury. He 
 says he had made three experiments (and you cannot doubt 
 that those experiments were most carefully made he is himself 
 a most experienced chloroformist, and would know all the con- 
 ditions under which these experiments might be properly and 
 favourably made), the cases in which he tried it with children 
 succeeding, but the cases in which he tried it with adults failed, 
 and the persons awoke. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, what do you say as to the first step the 
 step of administering chloroform by inhalation to the sleeping 
 person so as to produce insensibility, which would enable the 
 subsequent administration of chloroform by the throat ? Does 
 not all the information that the best medical authorities can 
 give us on the subject show to you that it is in the highest 
 degree improbable that an unskilled person would ever be able 
 to transform sleep into anaesthesia by the influence of chloroform 
 without waking the person who was subject to that process ? 
 
 Now, let me take one other step with regard to this. If 
 death had followed on inhalation, there would probably be 
 some appearances discoverable in the post-mortem examination. 
 Tnose appearances would have become less definite as the time 
 passed by after the administration of chloroform and death from 
 it, and it was not Mrs. Bartlett's fault that her husband's body 
 was not examined within a very few hours of his death. She 
 was urging it anxious for it saying no expense should be 
 spared in order for it to be done ; and it was only by an accident 
 the doctor being that afternoon engaged that her wish was 
 thwarted, and that the examination was postponed until the 
 next day. But if it is not presumptuous in me to say so, the 
 indications of chloroform poisoning by inhalation, in a post- 
 mortem examination, are not very precise, and have a tendency 
 to disappear during the time that elapses after death. But still, 
 if there had been inhalation, one would expect to find some 
 indications if death had occurred very shortly after, and 
 although that inhalation had not gone far enough to produce
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 103 
 
 paralysis which might cause the death-paralysis of the heart 
 and paralysis of the respiratory organs still, one would expect 
 to find, though in a smaller degree, indications that inhalation 
 had taken place. And here, although one would not expect to 
 find indications in so marked a degree as if death had happened 
 from inhalation alone, still, as according to the theory of the 
 prosecution, the inhalation of chloroform must have taken place 
 shortly before death to such an extent as to produce a very 
 considerable amount of anaesthesia and insensibility, one would 
 expect to find some indications. I do not desire to lay too much 
 stress upon this argument, but it is an undoubted fact that none 
 of the indications of inhalation of chloroform were ever found in 
 this body. We have got from Dr. Stevenson, and have got also 
 from Dr. Leach, who told you, and who told my learned friend, 
 that he had (and it is quite natural) lately directed his attention 
 to the study of this matter and the works on it. We have got 
 from them a statement of what the results the ordinary signs 
 of chloroform inhalation are. Dr. Stevenson agrees with Guy 
 and Ferrier that the odour will be observable in the cerebral 
 ventricles. He demurred to one statement in " Guy and Ferrier," 
 but he said Guy and Ferrier were high authorities onj;he subject, 
 and I put to him that quotation. He agrees with* Snow that 
 inhalation maybe detected after death in the urine. He agrees 
 that in many cases, again, as recorded by Snow and quoted 
 by Taylor, engorgement of the right side of the heart is to be 
 discovered. 
 
 Now, let us take these three as the signs. There is one other 
 which I will refer to in a moment that Dr. Stevenson did not 
 accept. What were the post-mortem conditions in this case? 
 The brain was carefully examined. Nothing whatever was 
 detected in it ; no odour of chloroform whatever was detected 
 by the skilled pathologist who, with adequate assistance, was 
 making that post-mortem examination. Dr. Green has not been 
 able to come and give his evidence as to that at this trial, but 
 we know he is a person of great pathological skill, and I have 
 a right to assume that he would be familiar with the symptoms 
 of the mischief which it was his business to detect. Now, 
 gentlemen, the heart is described : nothing abnormal ; the 
 brain was carefully examined : nothing abnormal. The one 
 other part in which signs of inhalation of chloroform can be 
 found the urine was never examined by anybody. So that, 
 so far as the post-mortem examination goes, I am entitled to 
 say this I do not wish to push it too far, because there may be 
 an explanation, and the observation is not a very strong one 
 but of all the indications of the inhalation of chloroform before 
 death which are in the books of the authorities, and which are 
 recognised by the witnesses before you, not one was found on
 
 104 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BART LETT 
 
 the post-mortem examination of Mr. Bartlett's body. There 
 was one other that I mention separately, because it was not 
 accepted by Dr. Stevenson, although I put it to him from " Guy 
 and Ferrier," and that was intense inflammation of the air- 
 passages. But I read the passages from "Guy and Ferrier" 
 with respect to the results of poisoning by that class of poisons 
 to which chloroform belongs, the poisons alcohol, ether, and 
 chloroform ; and I read the passage to him : u They act as 
 irritants to the parts with which they come in contact, produc- 
 ing intense inflammation in the lining membrane of the stomach 
 when swallowed, and in that of the air-passages when inhaled." 
 Though he did not entirely agree, as far as his experience goes, 
 with that passage, he admits the book is one of considerable 
 authority, and I am entitled to say that in the air-passages of 
 that body no trace of inhalation of chloroform was found. 
 
 Now, I am going, gentlemen, by steps. I have shown to you 
 the enormous (do not you think I may add the word adopted 
 by Dr. Stevenson ?), insuperable I have shown to you the 
 enormous, may I not say the almost insuperable difficulty of 
 administering chloroform to a sleeping person without awaking 
 him, and I have shown you by medical science that, whether 
 carried to the point of fatal insensibility, or preceding death 
 from another cause, it might leave, I put it no higher, indica- 
 tions which would be discoverable on post-mortem examina- 
 tion ; and if those indications were discoverable at all, they 
 would be now catalogued to you, and not one of them is dis- 
 covered in the body of Mr. Bartlett on post-mortem examination. 
 Now, gentlemen, let us suppose this almost miracle has been 
 worked, and that an unskilled person, alone, without any 
 assistance, has succeeded in administering chloroform to a 
 sleeping man a man, observe, who would be called a refractory 
 subject, a man upon whom these anaesthetics did not easily 
 produce effect, who had been with difficulty affected by nitrous 
 oxide gas a short time before. Supposing all these enormous 
 difficulties overcome, and this thing to have been effected, and 
 the man to have passed under the influence of chloroform ; well, 
 there are many dangers, many things that might have promptly 
 happened. The first stage of chloroform is described as intoxi- 
 cation, a sort of intoxication, and there is no doubt that very 
 often in that early stage there would be noise, and violence, and 
 movement, which one person could not restrain, at the very 
 time that she was administering the chloroform herself. But there 
 is another danger : the administering of chloroform produces 
 generally, at some stage or other sometimes a very early stage, 
 and sometimes a late one produces vomiting, and it is not at 
 all unimportant to notice that in this case there is no evidence 
 of vomiting of any sort or kind. 
 But suppose these dangers passed by and you will observe
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 105 
 
 that I am now discussing what is the scientific possibility, what 
 one can imagine to be done by trained chloroformists, and the 
 experienced skill of a man like Dr. Stevenson or Dr. Tidy 
 suppose all these difficulties are surpassed and this wonderful 
 result to have been effected, and the man to have passed quietly 
 into a sort of anaesthesia, then what is probable with regard to 
 the case ? I put to Dr. Stevenson the stages through which a 
 person ordinarily passes. I quite agree that those stages are 
 not to be found in every case. There may, for instance, in some 
 cases be no excitement, no delirious outcry, just as in some cases 
 there may be no vomiting ; the conditions are not constant, the 
 symptoms are not always the same ; but one is bound to take 
 the ordinary history of a case of a person under the influence of 
 chloroform. And what does Dr. Stevenson tell us with regard 
 to that ? There are four stages. The first stage is a stage of 
 excitement ; the second stage is one where that excitement is 
 calming down towards insensibility I am very reluctant to use 
 words of my own in which, in matters of this enormous import- 
 ance, the alteration of a single phrase might be of consequence, 
 so I read the passage which 1 put to Dr. Stevenson, and which 
 he adopted : " There are considered to be four stages in the 
 administration of vapour. In the first the patient becomes 
 excited ; in the second he talks incoherently, and sensibility is 
 diminished ; in the third he is unconscious, but the muscles 
 are rigid ; in the fourth, the muscles are completely relaxed, and 
 the patient is perfectly insensible. Danger commences with 
 the third stage." That closes the passage. Now, gentlemen, 
 yesterday afternoon we heard from Dr. Stevenson what the 
 condition of things would be in each of those stages with respect 
 to the possibility of administering a liquid poison of this kind. 
 In the first stage, assuming it to have existed assuming that 
 the sleep did not pass into a sort of state of coma at once, in 
 which case the person administering the chloroform would have 
 very little indication to guide him or her of the state in which 
 the patient was but assume the stages to be followed : in the 
 first stage there would be this excitement, but there would be 
 sensation ; and a sensation of the entrance into the mouth and 
 air-passages, and over the tender surface of the mouth and 
 throat, of this irritant poison would arouse the patient to 
 resistance, as in the case of which the doctor in America spoke. 
 Then, in the second stage, there wculd still be sensibility, and 
 there would be the resistance to anything passing down the 
 throat. Well, but then there would be the third stage. The 
 third stage involves a rigidity of the muscles, and the jaw itself 
 becomes rigid, and during that period of rigidity it would need 
 force to open the mouth down which the person is intending to 
 pour the poison. I agree again, and again I admit it may be 
 presumptuous of me to use the word, but I agree that the
 
 106 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 duration of this rigidity differs enormously in different cases : on 
 the one hand, the transition from the state of insensibility to 
 complete anaesthesia may take place within the compass of two 
 minutes, while, on the other, the experienced doctor administers 
 more chloroform if he thinks it ridcessary, and as far as he thinks 
 it necessary, and he cannot produce that state of anaesthesia in 
 less than eight minutes. Just as the period of the whole four 
 stages varies, so the period of rigidity would vary, and you 
 might have a case in which the rigidity would last for a very 
 few seconds, and you may have a case, that is Dr. Tidy's 
 experience, in which for four minutes the jaw might be rigid, 
 and during that time it is impossible there can be, without 
 violence and force which no single person could use, the 
 administration of chloroform. But when that rigidity has 
 passed away, you come to the next stage. According to this 
 distribution of the stages of the effects of chloroform, the 
 next stage is one in which the muscles are completely relaxed, 
 and the patient is perfectly insensible. But when the muscles 
 are relaxed, and the patient is insensible, you cannot get any 
 liquid down the throat at all because of the act of swallowing. 
 It is proved in evidence before you. Dr. Murray talks of the 
 administration of this liquid by a tube, and in answer to the 
 question, not from me only, but from the learned Judge, the wit- 
 nesses have described how the act of swallowing is a voluntary 
 process, and in ordinary conditions it requires the voluntary 
 action of different muscles in order that the substance that 
 passes to the mouth shall pass to the gullet and down to the 
 stomach, and shall pass over the opening of the air-passages 
 through which we speak without any portion of it getting into 
 the air-passages and causing violent irritation and rejection of 
 it. There is a reflex action of the muscles which lasts for some 
 time after the voluntary action has ceased, and there is a time 
 when the reflex action will be excited by the contact of sub- 
 stances with the muscles of the throat, and the act of swallowing 
 will be performed; but if the act of swallowing is not com- 
 pletely performed, if the action is not regular, full, and complete 
 in its effect, the great probability will be that some of the sub- 
 stance will <;et into the air-passages ; on its reception into the 
 air-passages, it would cause choking, and, if it did so in a case 
 where death afterwards occurred, undoubtedly there would be 
 found, which was not found in this case there would be found 
 evidence in the condition of the air-passages of the transit of 
 this irritant poison. 
 
 But now, gentlemen, what does this evidence come to ? Dr. 
 Stevenson says in this delicate and varying operation of 
 administering chloroform by inhalation there is a time, or 
 there may be a time, the duration of which no one can measure,
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 107 
 
 the existence and the conditions of which it is scarcely possible 
 for the most careful doctor to predict, but there may be an 
 instant of time, or a few instants, dur.ng which the patient would 
 be so far insensible as not to detect or resent the administration 
 of the poison so far insensible as not to do, that, and yet with 
 sufficient remains of sensibility about him for the muscles to 
 exert their reflex action, and the act of swallowing to take place. 
 Supposing that possible, supposing that time whose duration no 
 man can measure, the indication of whose presence no one but 
 the most experienced man can detect, suppose that time to 
 exist, you are asked to believe that that woman that night, 
 alone with her husband, performed on him this marvellous 
 operation. I put to Dr. Stevenson yesterday, towards the end 
 of my cross-examination, a question in which I. ventured to sum 
 up, and repeat to him the whole result of the cross-examination 
 which I had directed to this point. Consider who it was with 
 whom I was dealing. I was dealing with that scientific 
 authority whose name is quoted by Taylor in his book as 
 having made two hundred administrations of chloroform at 
 Guy's Hospital, one who knows, if any man living does know, 
 exactly the conditions under which chloroform may be adminis- 
 tered, the precautions which are to accompany that administra- 
 tion, and the indications that will be given of the condition ot 
 the patient, and I ventured to put to him this question : " With 
 all your knowledge, experience, and skill, if you had before you 
 the problem the object of administering chloroform in this 
 liquid form in order to produce the death of a person sleeping 
 before you would it not be a delicate and difficult operation ? " 
 and Dr. Stevenson's experience gave me back the answer that it 
 would be. Even to him, with all his knowledge, with all his 
 experience, it would be a difficult operation and a delicate 
 operation. 
 
 Why, gentlemen, I confess, when I had that answer, I 
 thought that, if this had been an ordinary case, the counsel for 
 the Crown would have felt bound to reconsider the position that 
 they had assumed with respect to it, and that the learned 
 Judge, listening to that answer and appreciating, as I am sure 
 he does appreciate, the great weight and importance of it, 
 coming from Dr. Stevenson, must have himself considered how 
 far the result of that cross-examination had modified the right 
 of the Crown to continue the prosecution and had left it 
 possible for a jury to be allowed with safety to consider it as 
 still evidence upon which they might base a conviction. 
 
 But before I leave it, there is just one more observation I 
 want to make. I put to Dr. Murray (and I attach great 
 importance to the answers which Dr. Murray gave at the end 
 of his examination, and when I was permitted by my lord to
 
 loS THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 put some more questions, and when, I think, one or two 
 members of your body put questions to him), I have put to the 
 medical witnesses, the question of how they can tell when 
 insensibility has been sufficiently produced for the feeling of 
 pain to disappear, and for it to be possible for the operation to 
 be proceeded with. They say, fairly enough, that in many of 
 the cases in which chloroform is used it is not necessary to 
 produce entire insensibility, and the chloroform is used not 
 altogether for that purpose, but only to dull the sense of pain ; 
 but I asked Dr. Murray, " In administering chloroform for the 
 purpose of performing an operation, must you not try and 
 determine the exact time when insensibility begins, that you 
 may with safety commence the operation?" How does he do 
 it ! He touches the eye, and then he notes whether the reflex 
 action of the muscles produces the winking movement of the 
 eyelids. While that reflex action of the muscles exists, he does 
 not perform the operation, because there will be pain and may 
 be resistance ; when the reflex action of the muscles has 
 ceased, then the operation may be safely performed. But when 
 the reflex action of the muscles has ceased no doctor can say 
 which portion of the body, which set of muscles, has lost the 
 capacity for reflex action, and in which reflex action may still 
 remain. It is not believed that reflex action of all the muscles 
 disappears at the same time. But the answer of Dr. Murray 
 fixed it to this knowledge by his experience, that, when the 
 reflex action of the eyelids has disappeared, the sense of pain 
 has practically gone ; but, for all they know, the reflex action of 
 all muscles has then disappeared, and when that reflex action 
 of the muscles is gone, although it is possible to pour 
 chloroform into the mouth of a person in a recumbent position 
 and let it stay there, and although, to use Dr. Murray's words, 
 " I think some of it would trickle down the throat," the poison 
 would be kept in contact with the softer substance of the 
 mouth, and that so long that, as he stated in answer to a 
 question from one of yourselves, one would have looked for, 
 and must have found, appearances about the mouth and upper 
 part of the throat which were entirely absent in the case with 
 which you have to deal. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I hope you do not think I have kept you 
 too long and dwelt with too much detail on this, the scientific, 
 aspect of the case. I have striven to get rid as far as I can of 
 the scientific terms and phrases which might convey meanings 
 to the experienced physicians, but which would be unfamiliar to 
 the experience of yourselves, and I may add, to me. But I 
 hope I have shown you, by tracing this process from end to 
 end, that the difficulty is established not merely by the evidence 
 of Dr. Stevenson, but that this difficulty is established by
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE log 
 
 different testimony with regard to every step of the process 
 which we get from the best authorities who have spoken and 
 written on this subject; whether in England, France, or 
 America. 
 
 And now I hope I have justified to you what I said a little 
 \\hile ago, that this case will be long memorable in the annals 
 of medical jurisprudence. It is not only an accusation which is 
 strange as viewed by the light of the previous relations existing 
 between husband and wife, but it is an accusation against one 
 who was, so far as we know, absolutely unstudied in the ways 
 of medicine; who, from what she said herself (and, indeed, it is 
 clear), knew little indeed of chloroform, the mode of its 
 administration, and the objects that it would serve ; and it is an 
 accusation against her that she, alone in the room with her 
 sleeping husband, has succeeded (was I not right in saying 
 almost by miracle ?) in performing one of the most difficult 
 and delicate operations possible to be performed, and has so 
 succeeded that no trace, no spilling of chloroform by the 
 nervous hand, no effects through the chloroform having been 
 allowed to remain long in contact with the soft passages, no 
 traces in the post-mortem condition of the body, reveal the fact 
 that she had succeeded in doing that most difficult and delicate 
 operation. 
 
 And so, gentlemen, I pass over the scientific aspect of the 
 case, one, I am sure, which will not be allowed to escape your 
 very careful attention, and one as to which I venture most 
 respectfully to say that the result of the considerations which I 
 have put before you (considerations in which I have striven to 
 deal, with the most absolute fairness, with the evidence that 
 has been given in this court) I submit to you that the result of 
 those considerations makes it impossible for you to return a 
 verdict of Guilty in this case. 
 
 But now, gentlemen, I pass to the other matters with which I 
 have to deal, and I want to make an observation or two at this 
 point with reference to what I said a little while ago as to the 
 possibility of the learned Attorney-General, in his reply, point- 
 ing out to you and dwelling upon topics of suspicion and ot 
 prejudice. Now, I have carefully read the note of the speech 
 in which the learned Attorney- General opened this case, and 
 nothing could have been more fair and temperate and 
 careful than the opening in which he introduced to your 
 mind the consideration of this matter ; but he alluded to 
 several smaller matters in terms which showed that they 
 were matters which might possibly, as he thought, affect 
 your minds, and point in the one direction of suggesting 
 the guilt of Mrs. Bartlett. There were several of them. 
 I hope . I am not too confident in saying that they have
 
 1 10 -THE TRIAL Of ADELAIDE 
 
 absolutely disappeared under the test of cross-examination, and 
 that there is not one of those suspicious circumstances which 
 survives the examination which we have made. Let us take 
 them in order. 
 
 It was pointed out to you that on the evening before her 
 husband's death Mrs. Bartlett spoke about chloroform ; and we 
 know now from the evidence what that conversation was. On 
 the evening of that day, after Mr. Bartlett had come back from 
 the dentist's, Mrs. Doggett went into the room. Mr. Bartlett 
 talked to her. Mrs. Bartlett was reading at the table, but in 
 the conversation which ensued Mrs. Bartlett did interpose. Mr. 
 Bartlett was talking about what had happened during that day. 
 He had had a tooth drawn, and it is said Mrs. Bartlett asked, 
 " Did you ever take chloroform ?" of Mrs. Doggett, and Mrs. 
 Doggett said she hnd taken it some years before, upon which 
 she was asked whether it was nice, or pleasant. She was not 
 quite sure which was the word used, but there was the impres- 
 sion of the question, and she answered she did not remember, 
 it was so long ago. I dare say, gentlemen, you will have ob- 
 served that that conversation was at least as likely to suggest to 
 Mr. Bartlett the idea of himself taking chloroform as it was to 
 be connected with any thought of murder in the mind of Mrs. 
 Bartlett. But just let us consider when that conversation with 
 Mrs. Doggett was. We were not given in detail or with exact- 
 ness the whole course of the conversation. It was not expected 
 that we should. We often expect far too much from witnesses 
 when we expect from them in the witness-box the exact detail 
 and language, the record of every conversation which, at the 
 time it was uttered, could not suggest to them the importance 
 which subsequent events have given to it. But we know now 
 that on that afternoon Mr. Bartlett had been to the dentist's. 
 We know that on the previous occasion he had had his gums 
 treated by a local application producing cold and destroying 
 the sense of pain when teeth were taken out, and I think, I am 
 not quite certain, but I think he mentioned to Mrs. Doggett the 
 fact of having his gums frozen. Whether that was so, that was 
 the fact that he had had his gums frozen in order to prevent the 
 sense of pain. On this occasion that very afternoon he had 
 had a tooth extracted, and he had it extracted in a different way, 
 and he had taken nitrous oxide gas, and there had been a diffi- 
 culty in his taking it. Now, to the common inexperienced 
 person nitrous oxide gas and chloroform are not very distinct. 
 In either case there is the application of vapour the inhalation 
 of vapour for purposes of producing insensibility to pain. Do 
 you think the fact that Mr. Bartlett on that evening talking to 
 Mrs. Doggett about having his tooth out that afternoon, and 
 having it present to his mind that he had been saved from pain
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE m 
 
 by means of an anaesthetic never used with him before do not 
 you think it is in the highest degree probable that when Mrs. 
 Doggett was talking to Mr. Bartlett he might have mentioned 
 the way it was effected, and, if that was so, the most natural 
 way of joining in the conversation would be : Did you ever 
 have anything of the kind ? Did you ever have chloroform ? 
 and the whole thing is explained. And I do beseech you, look- 
 ing at the weight you are to give to the evidence as to conver- 
 sations, which, as I point out, at the time they occurred the 
 talkers never imagined would have any importance at all I 
 beseech you to consider for yourselves what, in your judgment, 
 would have been the reasonable and probable course of the 
 conversation between Mrs. Bartlett and Mrs. Doggett on that 
 evening. 
 
 Now, just let me take another thing. I shall have to point 
 out to you by-and-by, with regard to the evidence of one of the 
 witnesses in this case, the way in which the moment the death 
 had occurred all sorts of accusations and suspicions were sug- 
 gested. But we have from Mrs. Doggett a statement on which 
 some emphasis has been laid in this case. Gentlemen, I beg 
 your pardon, I have omitted one matter which comes before it 
 in order of time, and I will go back to it for a moment. There 
 were two matters mentioned, also as matters of suspicion, of 
 which the servant spoke, and which happened on the evening 
 before the death. One was that, instead of taking, as she was 
 told to take, the basin into the room, she was told not to come 
 into the room again, but to leave the basin on the table outside. 
 The other is almost too trivial to mention, but, as I have said, 
 I must guard myself with reference to every matter of this kind 
 the fact that Mrs. Bartlett had not the same dress on when 
 she awoke the servant as when the servant saw her in the even- 
 ing. Let me say one word on each of those matters. The 
 incident about the basin has absolutely disappeared, I venture 
 to say, under the test of cross-examination, for what happened 
 about it was this. Alice Fulcher told us that Mrs. Bartlett told 
 her after supper to bring up a scuttle of coals and the basin, 
 and it was at the same time she gave her the instructions about 
 the two things. Alice Fulcher brought up the scuttle of coals, 
 but did not bring-up the basin. She took the scuttle of coals 
 into the room at the time Mr. Bartlett was in bed. He was not 
 in bed when the order was given, but he was in bed when she 
 took the scuttle of coals in the room, and then Mrs. Bartlett 
 spoke about the basin, and told her " not to bring the basin in, 
 but to leave it outside." There is the whole thing from begin- 
 ning to end, and it is perfectly obvious that the order was given 
 to the servant to bring up the two things ; she brought up one, 
 and took it into the room, and Mr. Bartlett was in bed, and, as
 
 112 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 we have heard, was probably trying to get some sleep, and sd 
 she told her not to bring it in, but to leave it outside, and she 
 left it outside. There was a table outside, and on that Alice 
 Fulcher put the basin. It was there in the morning ; it was 
 not used. It would have been used in the course of the night, 
 for beef-tea, probably, because Mrs. Bartlett kept Liebig's ex- 
 tract in the room, and was in the habit of keeping a fire through- 
 out the night and making beef-tea for her husband, but unfor- 
 tunately on that night there was no occasion or opportunity for 
 her to administer beef-tea to him. 
 
 Now, about the dress, is that to be a matter for suspicion ? 
 It is surely the most obvious thing in the world. Mrs. Bartlett 
 had been out that day with her husband. After the illness 
 began, when Mr. Bartlett's bedstead was removed into the 
 front room, Mrs. Bartlett never occupied the bed which she had 
 previously occupied alone in the back room, but she slept upon 
 the sofa, moved it in front of the fire, and she slept, as Dr. 
 Leach tells us, sitting in that small chair at the bottom of her 
 husband's bed, or lying on the sofa. But in the evening she 
 used to go into that back room to wash, and Alice Fulcher tells 
 us the washing-basin was generally used late in the evening in 
 that back room. She cannot say whether it was used on that 
 particular evening, but at all events that was the ordinary 
 course of things. Is it not obvious that what usually took 
 place would take place, that Mrs. Bartlett, when her husband 
 had gone to bed, and was settling himself for the night, would 
 go into that room to wash before returning to her post and her 
 place for the night? She would take off the dress in which she 
 had been out; she would put on some dress in which she 
 would be comfortable and easy throughout the hours of the 
 night ; and we are told by one of the witnesses that the dress 
 she then had on was a grey, and a sort of a loose jacket with it, 
 and Alice Fulcher said it was a lighter and looser dress than 
 the one she had worn during the day. 
 
 Now, there are other matters on which greater stress was 
 laid, and I ask you to consider what the real evidence with 
 regard to them is. How about the condition of the fire? 
 What is the evidence with regard to that? Mr. Doggett said 
 he noticed the fire when he was called in. He noticed the fire 
 looked as if it had been recently attended to. Mrs. Doggett 
 comes and says the same thing. It is very remarkable about 
 Mr. Doggett that when he was examined first before the coroner 
 he did not say a syllable about the fire. It cannot have im- 
 pressed itself very strongly on his mind, or he would probably 
 have mentioned it when first examined. Until his wife had 
 been examined, and had mentioned about the fire, Mr. Doggett 
 (whether it occurred to him or not) had not mentioned it before:
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 113 
 
 the coroner. So I asked the wife in cross-examination with 
 regard to this condition of the fire. Dr. Leach, as you remember, 
 did not recollect anything about the fire at all. I asked the 
 wife about the condition of the fire. Did not her answers put 
 an end to the suggestion the idea of anything remarkable 
 about the fire ? I asked her whether she had at any time had 
 the sad experience of watching through the night by a sick-bed ? 
 She said she knew something of it. She admitted as any 
 woman would admit that at night, especially with a patient at 
 all suffering from sleeplessness and restlessness, it would be the 
 most manifest duty of the person watching to pack the fire, to 
 build it up and make it last for hours, that it might go for a 
 sufficient number of hours without being closely attended to. 
 Then I asked : Did not this look like a fire that had been 
 packed, and remained packed, and was then broken with a touch 
 of the poker just a fire well packed, and after some hours, 
 when it was crusted over, broken up with the poker, when the 
 hot coal prepared for immediate combustion, flames up and 
 breaks into a good fire at once ? She said yes, that was the ap- 
 pearance it presented ; it must have been an appearance follow- 
 ing on that. Is not that the most obvious thing in the world? 
 Mrs. Bartlett, preparing for sleep that night, and having her 
 husband composed and quiet for the evening, as she hopes, to 
 get the sleep which strenuous efforts had been made to obt .in 
 for him, would pack the fire in that way, and when she came 
 down from the servant's room, after sending her for the doctor, 
 and calling down people to come to her in the room where her 
 husband lay is it not one of the most natural things to do to 
 take up the poker and break up the fire into the condition in 
 which it was seen ? 
 
 Well now, gentlemen, there is one more matter of suspicion 
 against Mrs. Bartlett with which it is my duty to deal, although 
 not entirely at this point, but I mention it because it leads me 
 to some otner observations which I desire to offer very respect- 
 fully to your consideration on this subject. It is the matter 
 alleged against Mrs. Bartlett of her having made untrue state- 
 ments to Mr. Dyson with respect to Dr. Nichols and Annie 
 Walker, and the relation which had existed between herself 
 and them. I shall be obliged to discuss by-and-by some 
 matters connected with Dr. Nichols and Annie Walker, 
 although I should not pursue them to any very great length, 
 but this brings me to an observation as to the position of Mr. 
 Dyson. 
 
 This matter mainly depends upon the evidence, and upon the 
 recollection, of Mr. Dyson, because it is from him that you 
 have got the statement that Mrs. Bartlett told him that her 
 husband had been to Dr. Nichols; that her husband was 
 
 H
 
 114 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 suffering from an internal complaint ; that she had administered 
 chloroform for the purpose of soothing him in these paroxysms, 
 and that Annie Walker was the person who had obtained the 
 chloroform for her, and could no longer obtain it because she 
 had gone to America. Now, in outline, as completely as I can 
 recall it, that is the statement alleged by Mr. Dyson to have 
 been made by her, and to have been, so the prosecution 
 suggests, untruly made. But, gentlemen, I cannot comment 
 upon this part of the case without remarking, what I think 
 must have at once rushed on your minds, that, if the making of 
 an untrue statement is any evidence of guilt, it is somewhat 
 strange that Mr. Dyson was in the witness-box. Now observe, 
 so far from challenging in the least the course which has been 
 taken with regard to Mr. Dyson, I accept the conclusion at 
 which the Crown arrived, that there really was no case to be 
 submitted to you which you could be fairly asked to consider 
 against him. If my learned friend had thought that there had 
 been any such case, he certainly would not have taken the 
 course which he did take. I am not suggesting that there is. 
 I accept may I add that I believe in ? the correctness of the 
 verdict which you were invited by the Crown to give, and that 
 Mr. Dyson is free from complicity in any crime, if crime were 
 perpetrated. But when you are being asked to deal with the 
 case against Mrs. Bartlett, and to use against her, or to allow 
 to be used against her, with grave effect, the untruthful state- 
 ments which she is said to have made, and which come to 
 you upon Mr. Dyson's evidence, and as he remembers, or says 
 he remembers, has it not occurred to you in the course of this 
 case how fortunate Mr. Dyson is that he is not standing in the 
 dock himself? 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I beg you to note that I do not impeach his 
 innocence in the least. I wish that no word I may say may 
 appear to suggest it would not be true if it did suggest any 
 doubt on my mind with regard to the matter. But supposing 
 his case were before you, what would you have ? That Sunday 
 morning he walked along the side of Tooting Common on his 
 way to preach at a chapel, and as he went he threw from him, 
 with the gesture which you saw him use in that box, the three 
 or four bottles that had been in his possession. Suppose some 
 one who knew him had seen him walking along that morning, 
 and had seen him fling away the bottles, and had thought, " It 
 is a little odd that the Rev. Mr. Dyson should be tossing 
 bottles away on Tooting Common on Sunday morning," and 
 had had the curiosity to pick up a bottle, and had found it 
 labelled " Chloroform. Poison." Suppose it had come to light, 
 at the first meeting of the inquest, that Mr. Dyson was an 
 habitual visitor at the house where this death had taken place ;
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 115 
 
 suppose it had come to light that he had been in the habit of 
 walking out with Mrs. Bartlett, and that she had visited him at 
 his own lodgings ; suppose it came to light that the terms on 
 which he was dealing with Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett were terms of 
 an exceptional character, having regard to the circumstances 
 and relations between him and the wife ; and suppose it had 
 come out by inquiry at the chemist's whose name is on the 
 label that, when Mr. Dyson asked for the chloroform, he had 
 told him a falsehood, that he wanted it for stains on his coat 
 to take out stains which had come on his coat during his 
 holiday at Poole what would have been Mr. Dyson's position ? 
 That strange and hard man Richard Baxter used to say that he 
 never saw a criminal going to execution without observing to 
 himself, "There, but for the grace of God, goes Richard 
 Baxter." I think Mr. Dyson will never in his life read the 
 account of a trial for murder without thinking how heavily his 
 own rash, unjustified conduct would have told against him if he 
 had been put upon his trial. 
 
 Gentlemen, I do not use this for the purpose of suggesting 
 I said I was anxious not to suggest, for I do not entertain the 
 slightest doubt as to the innocence of Mr. Dyson ; but I do use 
 it to show you that where against him, an innocent man, a 
 falsehood told for the express purpose of getting this poison 
 might have been proved in the witness-box, and might have 
 been considered by the jury with so fatal an effec l.it would be 
 hard indeed that the statement from the lips of that very man 
 that Mrs. Bartlett told to him a story which was not wholly 
 true, to explain her desiring to possess this chloroform through 
 him it would be strange indeed if that were allowed to weigh 
 upon your minds as a serious element of suspicion against 
 her. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I said that I must make this observation 
 before I dwelt upon the relations of Dr. Nichols and Annie 
 Walker to this case. What is it that Dyson says ? He says 
 that he was told Mr. Bartlett had an internal complaint, and 
 that he had consulted Dr. Nichols, and that that internal 
 complaint produced paroxysms for which chloroform had been 
 used, and that the chloroform was obtained by Annie Walker, 
 and that she had gone to America. I suggest that it is impos- 
 sible to rely upon Mr. Dyson's recollection with regard to that 
 matter. You may have your own opinion whether upon some 
 points in this case Mr. Dyson's evidence is readily and fully to 
 to be accepted so far as it concerns himself. I think you will 
 have reason to see, from an observation I shall presently make, 
 that at all events there is very strong ground for the suspicion 
 that he has been anxious to protect himself, without much 
 regard to the actual truth as to his relation to Mr. and Mrs.
 
 ii6 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 Bartlett. And I suggest to you that you cannot rely upon the 
 entire accuracy of these statements. But, gentlemen, when one 
 comes to look into the facts of the case, these statements are 
 very near the truth in many respects. I do not say true as 
 they are given by Dyson, but at all events Dr. Nichols of 
 Fopstone Road is mentioned, and there is a Dr. Nichols of 
 the Fopstone Road. Whether Mr. Bartlett ever saw Dr. 
 Nichols or not, we do not know. Dr. Nichols does not 
 know, he does not remember any such name ; but he keeps no 
 record of the names ; and it was hardly necessary for me to 
 suggest, in my questions with regard to some matters upon 
 which Dr. Nichols might be consulted, that a person who went 
 to an unregistered medical practitioner, to consult him with 
 regard to his own condition, would in very many cases be very 
 unlikely to give his own name. But Mrs. Bartlett had known 
 Mrs. Nichols, who practised at the very same place, and it was 
 through Mrs. Nichols that Annie Walker was recommended to 
 Mrs. Bartlett. For what reasons Mrs. Nichols was consulted 
 by Mrs. Bartlett you cannot know, for Mrs. Nichols is dead; 
 and Dr. Nichols knows nothing whatever about the matter. 
 Mrs. Bartlett's account you cannot hear, but the fact that Mrs. 
 Nichols had been consulted is clear, and this also is clear that 
 Mr. Bartlett had in his possession this book of Dr. Nichols, to 
 which reference has been made, and that when Annie Walker, 
 the midwife who was recommended by Mrs. Nichols, was 
 staying at the house in order to discharge her duties, this book 
 was there. Before Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett it was made no secret 
 of; it was shown to the nurse; it was talked about between 
 them, and considered, and I shall submit to you, rightly con- 
 sidered, as a book the having of which, and the reading of 
 which, involved no reproach upon anybody. Mr. Dyson says 
 he does not remember hearing Dr. Nichols' or Mrs. Nichols' 
 name mentioned with regard to the matter of the confinement ; 
 but he does admit something with regard to Annie Walker 
 which, I think, is of considerable importance. Annie Walker's 
 name was not mentioned first to him at Claverton Street when 
 there came to be a question of obtaining chloroform. Annie 
 Walker's name was mentioned one day when he was by the 
 cemetery at Merton ; and you cannot doubt how that mention 
 came about. I am not sure that he admitted or recollected 
 that at that time there was conversation about there once having 
 been one child, or anything of that kind ; but is it not perfectly 
 obvious to you that the connection in which Annie Walker's 
 name would be mentioned to him would be that, he and Mrs, 
 Bartlett passing the cemetery, it might suggest to her the loss 
 which was a heavy loss to her at the time the loss of all the 
 hopes she had formed that their married life might give her a
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 117 
 
 child to love and to grow up into her companionship ? Here, 
 at all events, was mentioned Annie Walker, and the mention of 
 Annie Walker long before there was any mention of chloroform. 
 But supposing Mrs. Bartlett did tell Mr. Dyson about Annie 
 Walker's getting the chloroform, cannot one understand why. 
 there was some concealment and some explanation of this kind, 
 if Mrs. Bartlett's story is to be accepted by you ? And I will 
 show you reasons by-and-by for believing that it was absolutely 
 true. If Mrs. Bartlett's account is to be accepted, the state of 
 things was this : that the husband who so long had been, not 
 unkind to her, but cold, was desiring again to assert his marital 
 rights ; that he, acting quite freely, had in effect given her to 
 Dyson, had recognised the marriage which after his death might 
 come to pass between these two, and had provided, as far as he 
 could, for that contingency by making Dyson the executor of 
 his will, by which the money was all left to Mrs. Bartlett her 
 statement is that, he again desiring to assert these rights, she 
 felt, under those circumstances, that it would be a wrong to her 
 womanhood to allow the revival of these long-ceased relations. 
 Could she be expected to tell Mr. Dyson that ? Could any 
 woman with any delicacy at all have explained it so to Mr. 
 Dyson ? She gave him some reason for desiring to obtain 
 chloroform, and, when you come to look at it as explained by 
 him in answer to my cross-examination here, it is not far from 
 the explanation which she gave afterwards to Mr. Leach. Mr. 
 Dyson's idea, he says, was that she would sprinkle drops upon 
 the handkerchief, and that f she would use that handkerchief for 
 the purpose of soothing Mr. Bartlett, and if that were so, and 
 those were the words in which it was communicated, is it not 
 perfectly intelligible that Mrs. Bartlett should desire to veil by 
 that sort of account and explanation the real truth which she 
 could not be expected to communicate to Mr. Dyson ? 
 
 Gentlemen, I know how extraordinary are the relations which 
 are alleged to have existed between these persons. I said before 
 that these relations would be almost inconceivable if they were 
 not proved. I am going to show you that they are proved, or 
 substantially proved ; and I shall show you that under Mr. 
 Bartlett's own hand, by that letter which has been put in 
 evidence, and which I shall ask you carefully to consider. But 
 for a moment I am suggesting to you that this explanation by 
 Mrs. Barllett of the reason for which she wanted the chloroform 
 this veiled and hinted suggestion to Mr. Dyson, from whom 
 she would have every reason of delicacy for concealing the 
 real purpose and object of her getting it that that is by no 
 means an untruth which should bear with it such fatal suspicion 
 of its being an indication of a criminal purpose as would have 
 attached to the falsehoods told by Mr. Dyson when he tried to
 
 n8 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 get the chloroform, if Dyson himself were the person against 
 whom this evidence was to be taken, and with regard to whose 
 case it would be applicable. 
 
 ( The Court adjourned for a short time. After the adjournment, 
 Mr. ^.U^XX. proceeded t) 
 
 Gentlemen, at the time the Court adjourned, I had been 
 dealing with the question of the statements made by Mrs. 
 Bartlett as to Dr. Nichols and Annie Walker. There is only 
 just one word which I think I ought to say further with regard 
 to that. I have pointed out to you that we do not know, and 
 cannot know, what communication there may have been at 
 some time between Mr. Bartlett and Dr. Nichols. I dare say 
 that you will have observed that there were peculiarities about 
 the earlier and about the later symptoms of the illness which 
 commenced on the Qth of December which suggested to the 
 doctor first called a cause for some of those symptoms which 
 was not further investigated. But that Mr. Bartlett had some- 
 thing wrong with him no one can doubt, at all events if one 
 accepts the evidence of Mr. Dyson. I am in this difficulty 
 with regard to the evidence that Mr. Dyson has given. That 
 evidence may be trusted by you entirely, or may be trusted by 
 you in part and with certain limitations ; but, with regard to 
 the facts which do not affect his interests after the death had 
 taken place, I suggest to you that Mr. Dyson is giving us the 
 evidence of truth, and the only reason that I can see for 
 doubting whether the whole of that evidence is true, in the 
 sense that it is the whole truth, is that undoubtedly, when the 
 death occurred, considerations came crowding upon the mind 
 of Mr. Dyson suggesting to him injuries, in consequence of the 
 result of that inquiry, upon his after-career which possibly 
 affected to some extent the candour of the statements which 
 he made with regard to anything that took place after the 
 death. But if you believe Mr. Dyson as to facts, there was 
 something wrong with Mr. Bartlett. A man does not stop in 
 the midst of his dinner, and clutch at his side, and complain of 
 pain, unless there is some reason for it. I do not suggest to you 
 that there was much reason for it ; but what I do suggest to 
 your consideration is this, that in the statement, possibly 
 probably of its relation to the question of chloroform, which 
 was made to Mr. Dyson by way of explanation, at all events 
 there is a foundation of truth in a part of it. 
 
 I shall not now, and I will not at any time in this case, pursue 
 that question as to the nature of the indications of disease that 
 were found in Mr. Bartlett's mouth, established at the time of 
 Dr. Leach's first examination. It is not from any scruple as to
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 119 
 
 speaking of it that I hesitate to do so. Of all those mnxims 
 that have passed through the centuries, and exercised an in- 
 fluence on men's minds, in my judgment the most mischievous 
 of all is that which tells men only to speak good of the dead. 
 It has enfeebled the moral judgment of the world, and I for one 
 will never recognise it as an authority. But those considerations 
 have no place here, and I do not think that it is necessary I 
 should follow into and examine the possible causes, curious 
 though they may have been, of the condition of the mouth when 
 Dr. Leach saw it, and of the ultimate necrosis which set in, 
 according to Dr. Leach's account, on the agth, 3oth, and 3 1st 
 of December. But the marital relations which existed between 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett are certainly matters of very serious con- 
 sideration. In the first place, just let me point this out to you. 
 Mrs. Bartlett was apparently an estimable woman. The women, 
 few in number though they were only two, so far as we know 
 who came into personal communication with her, saw nothing 
 in her to dislike. Mrs. Matthews was her friend ; and Mr. and 
 Mrs. Matthews were the persons, the only persons, who visited 
 Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett in their home. But she had made one 
 other friend. By the introduction of Mrs. Nichols, she made 
 the personal acquaintance of Annie Walker ; and Annie Walker, 
 who has spent with her four weeks before her confinement, and 
 spent with her those other three weeks when the disappointed 
 mother the mother without a child was gradually recovering 
 strength from the painful illness which had tried and torn her 
 Mrs. Walker had undoubtedly conceived for her an affectionate 
 friendship, and the poor woman, so to speak in the solitude of 
 her life, had taken to her friendship this hired companion of her 
 hours of suffering ; and from time to time Annie Walker went 
 to see her, and gave her portrait to her, and seems to have been 
 attracted by her character and her disposition. At all events, 
 there was nothing in her or about her that alienated a woman's 
 affection from her, and prevented that affection becoming habit- 
 ual and constant. 
 
 Now, the question of the marital relations of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Bartlett is remarkable, and is a very curious question, and it is 
 one which connects itself, in my judgment, very much with this 
 woman. And I venture to say that, looking at all the circum- 
 stances of the case, I am glad that statement was brought out 
 by Mr. Dyson with regard to Dr. Nichols and Annie Walker. 
 For if it had not been for that statement, although I feel that it 
 may prejudice her case before you, and that it will be used to 
 show and it is the only instance in the case in which her state- 
 ments diverge from the truth although it will be used to show 
 there was that divergence, I am glad that it was brought out, 
 for that connection with Dr. Nichols and his wife directly bears
 
 120 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 upon the extraordinary moral relations of Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett. 
 Gentlemen, those moral relations were so strange that it is only 
 upon the most conclusive evidence that one would accept them. 
 I am not prepared to admit that they are relations unparalleled 
 in the experience of one's life. There are many cases where, 
 for different reasons, either in the husband or in the wife, the 
 sacred relationship of marriage becomes simply a companion- 
 ship of love, of confidence, and of mutual help ; and there have 
 been many cases and, so long as our nature is subject to the 
 ailments which afflict it, there will be many cases where a 
 wife or a husband has been called upon to bear for years the 
 companionship of married life with the denial of its entire 
 happiness and enjoyment ; and hundreds and thousands 
 of men and women have gone forward on that life, and have 
 borne it as Christians may bear it, and with a resignation which 
 after a time would become even use. But in this case I quite 
 agree it is so exceptional a relation that you need very strong 
 evidence of its existence ; and I look to see what evidence there 
 is in this case with regard to that matter. That Mr. Bartlett 
 himself was a man of strange ideas does not depend, in this 
 case, upon one witness. I call your attention to a most singular 
 fact. In the first sentence of that statement that was made by 
 Mrs. Bartlett on the 26th of January to Dr. Leach she said that 
 her husband was a man of strange ideas who had an idea, 
 when he married her, that a man might have two wives, one 
 for service and the other for companionship ; and there are 
 two witnesses who corroborate that specific statement. I 
 do not rest upon the evidence of Mr. Dyson. If that stood 
 alone, I agree it would not be so material. But the other 
 witness is a witness from whom a single word of evidence in 
 favour of Mrs. Bartlett is a treasure beyond price to the 
 counsel who defends her. It is that witness whose sordid 
 and vengeful malice nourished the idea of murder, suggested 
 it at the first moment, dwelt upon it, worked to establish it ; 
 it is the witness who did not shrink from coming into that 
 witness-box, and repeating, against the widow of his dead 
 son, the foul slander from which that son protected her while 
 he was here. He it is from whom I get the acknowledgement ; 
 and he says, " I remember once he told me that a man might 
 have two wives," and he spoke of it. How came he to 
 remember it ? He tried to weaken its force, to destroy its 
 effect, by putting in the observation, " I heard a man say 
 yesterday that he would like forty," and a laugh was caused, as 
 possibly he expected. But the observation of which he spoke 
 about his son, the observation as to a man having two wives, is 
 an observation which had fixed itself upon his recollection, and 
 he admitted that when I put it to him ; and the very same
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 121 
 
 observation as to the two wives was made by Mr. Dyson. 
 When Mr. Dyson gave his evidence in the box, and spoke of 
 that observation, and I was cross-examining about it, do you 
 remember the question that my lord put upon his evidence ? 
 " Was it said jocosely or seriously ?" Mr. Dyson used a strange 
 expression ; and his answer to that question was, that at first it 
 was put tentatively, and afterwards repeated more seriously ; 
 and Mr. Bartlett, if you can accept Mr. Dyson's evidence, and 
 according to that evidence, did ask, as a serious question, of 
 this minister of the Gospel, who was visiting at his house, 
 whether it was consistent with the teaching of God's Word 
 that a man should have two wives ? Gentlemen, that was 
 exactly what was said by Mrs. Bartlett in her statement to 
 Dr. Leach. There may be -this question about it, and I 
 pressed Mr. Dyson on the point " Did you understand that 
 he meant two wives, each of whom was to enjoy the full com- 
 panionship and personal affection of the husband ? " Mr. Dyson 
 put that aside : " Oh, he never mentioned it with regard to him- 
 self; it was a general observation.' 1 But do you believe that 
 Mr. Bartlett, speaking to a man whom then he knew only as 
 the minister of a place of Christian worship, to which he himself 
 went, seriously suggested to him that a man should be allowed 
 to have two wives in the full sense of the term ? 
 
 There may be an explanation, and I confess that I think it is 
 found in this book. I have had occasion, of course, to examine 
 this book in the course of the trial ; it is not for me to say what 
 opinion or judgment I have formed about it. I shall only be 
 entitled to read the book itself to you ; but we are not un- 
 acquainted in our criminal procedure with the publication of 
 works which have had for their vicious object the spreading 
 about to the public of explanations of the way in which physical 
 passion may be gratified without the risk of responsibility being 
 incurred. This book, whatever it may be, is no book of that 
 kind. So far from that being so, I asked Annie Walker (and 
 I am very anxious not to exceed my right in this matter) 
 whether she had read the book, and whether there was any- 
 thing immoral or improper in it, and she said there was nothing 
 of the kind. I asked Dr. Nichols, when he was called, whether 
 the statement in the preface, that he tried to make this as well 
 as his other books good and useful, the books true in science 
 and pure in morals, and contributing to the highest state of 
 humanity, was true, and he said it was, and there was no sug- 
 gestion to him at all of any observation conflicting with it. So 
 far from this book being an immoral book, it contains counsels 
 of perfection too high for the ordinary lite of men and women. 
 It lays down the rule that it is only for the continuation of the 
 species that the indulgence of sexual passion is permissible ;
 
 122 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 that the moment that indulgence is supposed to have resulted 
 in a natural and legitimate consequence, from that moment the 
 wife is sacred from the husband until the time of the nursing of 
 the child has expired. I do not discuss these doctrines ; I have 
 nothing to do with them ; their truth, their application, is in- 
 different to me ; but the book, such as it is, is a book which, so 
 far from lending itself to the lower influences and the lower 
 passions of men, is a book which endeavours to restrict, to 
 guide, and to limit the indulgence of those passions according 
 to rules which, in their strictness, would be almost impossible 
 to ordinary human nature, but which undoubtedly are com- 
 patible, as the sentence in this book which I before read 
 pointed out, are compatible with the lives of a very large 
 number of men amongst us. I will read no passage from this 
 book which I have not read before ; but you will remember 
 that I read a passage as to the one way in which the danger 
 and responsibility of childbirth could be naturally and effectually 
 prevented, and that was abstinence; (and here is the importance 
 of it, it belonged to, and was habitually considered and talked 
 about in Mrs. Walker's presence by Mr. Bartlett, as well as by 
 his wife) that is, "to refrain from the sexual act. It is easily 
 done by most women, and by many men. In every civilised 
 community thousands live in celibacy, many from necessity, 
 many from choice. In Catholic countries the whole priesthood 
 and great numbers of religious of both sexes take vows of 
 perpetual chastity. This practice has existed for at least sixteen 
 centuries." 
 
 Gentlemen, you can easily imagine that I do not desire in 
 this place, and in these surroundings, to enter into these ques- 
 tions in this book. I have anxiously thought how far I was 
 entitled to limit my observations with regard to it, and I hope 
 my lord, who no doubt has seriously considered this aspect of 
 this case, will not think that I have transgressed the limits 
 which I have imposed upon myself in discussing it ; but the 
 importance of it is not in the teaching of the book ; the import- 
 ance of it is that this book is found in the possession of people 
 with regard to whom there is so much other evidence as to the 
 relation in which they lived. The great improbability of the 
 account which has been given as to their lives has of course 
 struck you all. I have more than once referred to it, but just 
 let us see what the facts are about which there can be no 
 dispute. And I was going to say providentially, and I do not 
 see why I should shrink from the word "providentially," for 
 Mrs. Bartlett's protection there has been preserved one letter 
 the importance of which in this case, I think, it is impossible to 
 overrate. It is the letter about whose authorship there is no 
 doubt, as to the occasion for the reading of which we have
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 123 
 
 clear evidence, and which remains to-day in the handwriting of 
 her dead husband. Then Mr. Dyson is called. I do not know 
 if you thought, or that my lord thought, he dealt quite fairly 
 with some of my questions. It occurred to me, but I think it 
 is a matter for your judgment entirely, that, when he came to 
 the question of the relations between himself and Mrs. Bartlett, 
 he was anxious as far as possible to escape from the admission 
 of the relation that he had been in, and the position he held, 
 and the same lack of courage, to put it mildly, which led him 
 to try and get from her possession the poetry which he had 
 written and given to her, and which her husband had seen, led 
 him to try and tone down as much as he could the relations 
 existing between them. But you remember the mode in which 
 he gave his answer to the first important question carrying him 
 back irresistibly to the earlier period of the strange relationship 
 between himself and Mrs. Bartlett. He described that in 
 October, at Claverton Street, when paying there one of his 
 frequent visits, Mr. Bartlett had found some fault with his wife 
 and scolded her, and Mr. Dyson said, in substance, these 
 words, for I do not pretend to recite them with verbal accuracy, 
 " When she comes under my care," or, " I have charge of her, 
 I will do so and so." Of course it strikes every one at once 
 that could not be the first observation a man does not go to a 
 friend's house to see a friend and his wife, and say, "When 
 your wife is under my care, I will do" this, that, or the other. 
 It irresistibly carried him back to the earlier time, and he was 
 forced back step by step ; he was brought back to the month of 
 September, and to the conversation that took place with Mr. 
 Bartlett when he came back from Dover and came and called 
 on Dyson. Now, that conversation was a remarkable one, 
 strange and unexplained, but it is in evidence before you on 
 oath as part of the evidence upon which you are to decide this 
 case, and the conversation was this: Mr. Dyson told Mr. 
 Bartlett that he was feeling uneasy, that he had conceived an 
 affection for Mrs. Bartlett which interfered with his work, and 
 that he thought it would be better that he should discontinue 
 the visits. He had at that time spoken to Mrs. Bartlett of that 
 affection, and so he told the husband ; and instead of the 
 husband resenting it, as you would expect, the husband not 
 only did not resent it, but he indorsed it ; he gave it his 
 sanction, his consent and approval ; and from that day to the 
 day of his death he, the husband, cherished and nurtured, as 
 far as he could, the opportunities of communication and of 
 growing affection between his wife and the young Wesleyan 
 minister. It is a strange story. 'If it rested alone upon the 
 evidence given after the husband is dead you might doubt it ; 
 but it does not. We have got three documents, which are of
 
 124 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 considerable importance, with regard to it. On the 3rd of 
 September, Mr. Bartlett made his will at Herne Hill. Now, 
 observe, there was no question of anybody influencing him ir 
 making that will ; he was not with his wife, he was not with 
 Mr. Dyson ; he signed it at his place of business at Herne 
 Hill ; it was witnessed by the two assistants in the shop, who 
 came up and saw him write his name to it. There can be no 
 suggestion of any influence that anybody exercised on him with 
 regard to that. How did that alter the disposition of his 
 property ? Until that time, so far as the evidence goes, it was 
 believed his will had left Mrs. Bartlett his property upon the 
 condition that she should not marry again that it had been 
 one of those wicked wills which men are making every day, 
 and with which they are, restraining the freedom, outraging the 
 feelings of the wife they leave behind. But on the 3rd of Sept- 
 ember he altered it, and, instead of leaving it to her only in 
 case she did not get married, he left it to her absolutely, and he 
 appointed as one executor of that will the Rev. George Dyson. 
 
 But now, gentlemen, early in September the interview took 
 place between these two men, and the young Wesleyan 
 minister told the husband of the love which he had conceived 
 for the wife, and of which he had assured her. There are two 
 documents more. There is the document the letter written 
 by Mr. Dyson to Mr. Bartlett on the 2ist of September, and 
 there is the answer of Mr. Dyson to Mr. Bartlett on the 23rd. 
 Now, gentlemen, nothing can exceed in this case, having 
 regard to this part of the question with which you have to deal, 
 the importance of that letter from Mr. Bartlett. Let me read it 
 to you, and let me ask you to listen to it, having present to your 
 minds the statement that has been made by Mr. Dyson with 
 regard to the communication that he made to Mr. Bartlett : 
 " DEAR GEORGE, Permit me to say that I feel great pleasure 
 in thus addressing you for the first time." That letter shows 
 that shortly before that letter the relationship of the parties had 
 changed, and that Mr. Dyson had been admitted to a confidence 
 and intimacy which had not been given to him before. "To 
 me it is a privilege to think that I am allowed to feel towards 
 you as a brother, and I hope our friendship may ripen as time 
 goes on, without anything to mar its future brightness." Now 
 listen to this, gentlemen : " Would that I could find words to 
 express my thankfulness to you for the very loving letter you 
 sent Adelaide to-day." Now, when you consider that letter, 
 and consider that it is written by a husband to another man 
 and that in that sentence he mentions his wife by her Christian 
 name, you have gone a very long way indeed to confirm the 
 statement which is made as to their relations. A " loving 
 letter" written to Adelaide ! Why did he speak of her as
 
 125 
 
 " Adelaide " to another man ? Why did he write to express 
 thankfulness to another man for having written that letter to his 
 wife ! A loving letter to his wife ! There is, so far as I can 
 see, no conceivable explanation of it but this that the relations 
 between his wife and himself were not the relations of marriage 
 in its deepest and its closest ties, but that they were such 
 relations that he could quietly, calmly, without any pang of 
 jealousy, look upon the rising and growth of an affectionate 
 attachment between that wife and another man. Hear how he 
 goes on : " The very loving letter you sent Adelaide to-day. 
 It would have done anybody good to see her overflowing with 
 joy as she read it whilst walking along the street, and after- 
 wards as she read it to me." 
 
 Gentlemen, there must be something exceptional, something 
 extraordinary, something very difficult to believe about the 
 story that was given to you of the marital relations of these 
 persons ; there is nothing more remarkable than the fact which 
 is shown in that sentence of that letter that the husband should 
 write in thankfulness to another man for that letter that comes 
 the loving letter so loving that Adelaide overflows with joy 
 as she reads it when she walks along the street, and afterwards 
 when she reads it to her husband. If that sentence stood 
 alone, if there were no corroboration of it either by Mr. Dyson, 
 no statement made to Dr. Leach by Mrs. Bartlett I say that 
 sentence alone is capable of no explanation whatever save this, 
 that the marital relations between Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett were 
 relations of a strange and unusual character, relations which 
 allowed the husband to speak of another man with regard to 
 his wife, and of his wife's affection for another man, and I say 
 that can only be explained by the suggestion that husband and 
 wife were to each other loving and faithful companions, but 
 companions and nothing more. " I felt my heart going out to 
 you. I long to tell you how proud I felt at the thought I 
 should soon be able to clasp the hand of the man who from his 
 heart could pen such noble thoughts. Who can help loving 
 you. I felt that I must say to you two words, 'Thank you' ; 
 and my desire to do so is my excuse for troubling you with 
 this. Looking towards the future with joyfulness, I am yours 
 affectionately, EDWIN." Of all the strange things that this 
 Court has heard, in the multitude of cases which have here 
 been tried, involving the closest and deepest relationship of 
 lives, nothing stranger has ever been read than that letter, 
 where " yours affectionately, Edwin," is with humble and 
 apologetic humility thanking the man who had written a loving 
 letter to the wife which made her overflow with joy as she read 
 it to her husband. That letter is the key of the whole case. 
 Without it, it might not be possible to believe the statement
 
 126 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 that Mrs. Bartlett made as to their marital relations ; with it, 
 I venture to say it is impossible to disbelieve that statement, 
 and to suggest an intelligible explanation of the words and 
 phrases that that letter contains. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, there are two other matters before I pass 
 to their marital relations. One is a little matter that has arisen 
 to-day. Of all the learned counsel who have appeared in this 
 case on the part of the prosecution there is not one whose 
 diligence has so exacting an effect as my learned friend Mr. 
 Poland, and nothing whatever will be lost or forgotten when 
 that scrutinizing and all-remembering intellect is brought to 
 bear upon it. And this morning Alice Fulcher was recalled, 
 and Mrs. Doggett was recalled, for the purpose of giving you 
 some information as to the habits of life at Claverton Street. 
 I have already commented, and the observation my lord was 
 good enough to make upon it entirely answered the purpose of 
 the comment, upon the way in which the witnesses were asked 
 were they living as man and wife a phrase which may imply a 
 good deal, and the value of the answer to which depends 
 absolutely on the means of observation, and the reason for 
 observation, of the witnesses. But I am very grateful to my 
 learned friend for the scrupulous, care with which every item 
 of evidence is brought before you, for the evidence brought 
 before you this morning has established a very remarkable 
 thing with regard to the lives of these people. When they 
 went to take these rooms at Claverton Street, Mr. Bartlett was 
 in good health, but it was stipulated when they went there that 
 they should have two beds, and it was only because Mrs. 
 Doggett could not go to the Stores for two or three days to 
 order it, and then that the Stores took two or three days to 
 send it home it was only owing to that that a week elapsed 
 during which there was only one bed in that room. And as 
 soon as could be that second bed was supplied to the back 
 room, and from that time both those beds were used. It is not 
 so very remarkable even in our own, but it is much less 
 common in this country than in countries not far off, where the 
 use of two beds is frequent. But there it is, and as far as it 
 goes it gives support to the statement you have heard as to 
 their marital relations. The statement, you observe, relates to 
 matters so absolutely private that it is impossible to suspect you 
 would ever get very much evidence to support it. 
 
 But there is another point to which I attach a great deal of 
 importance, and that is given in the evidence of Dr. Leach. 
 Dr. Leach, in the witness-box, was a self-conscious witness, and 
 undoubtedly Dr. Leach was very anxious as to his own appear- 
 ance before the world, and to protect himself from misunder- 
 standing and from complaint in the mafter. Gentlemen, I own
 
 127 
 
 I feel a great deal of sympathy for Dr. Leach ; to a man like 
 him, carrying on an ordinary practice in a. place where he may 
 not be too much known, and going through the daily round of 
 the ordinary general medical practitioner's life, it is an 
 appalling thing to have suddenly thrust into his life all the 
 responsibility, and public responsibility, of a case like this. 
 He is confronted with medical problems which perplex men 
 who have spent years in that special study. He is called upon, 
 in the fierce light of public observation, to recount, to 1 explain, 
 to give statements as to facts, and to vindicate medical opinion 
 in a way which would test the capacity and the nerve of the 
 ablest and best men in his profession. And I must say for Dr. 
 Leach that, apart from that question of self-consciousness, 1 
 think he has been most anxious to give full information to the 
 jury and to the coroner when he was called as to all that he 
 had observed with regard to this matter. And in the witness- 
 box, it is for you to judge whether he did not seem to you, 
 under that crust and appearance of self-consciousness, at all 
 events most anxious to bring to his evidence and to the 
 answers which he gave to questions in examination and 
 cross-examination the honest desire to tell you, without 
 favour on one side or the other, what it was he had ob- 
 served in this case. Well, now, Dr. Leach, before he was 
 first examined before the Coroner, asked Mrs. Bartlett to tell 
 him what had happened on that evening, and she gave to him 
 an account over which at this moment I need not travel, but 
 which was absolutely identical with the account which she gave 
 to other people. Of all the events of that night, so far as they 
 referred to the finding of her husband, and the condition in 
 which he was, the matter which awoke her, and so on, she has 
 given four accounts. She gave an account to Mr. Doggett ; 
 she gave an account to Dr. Leach ; she gave another to Mrs. 
 Matthews ; she gave another to Mr. Dyson. Those four wit- 
 nesses have, here in court, repeated the accounts she gave, and 
 there is absolutely no difference of any material character no 
 difference, I mean, except in just the merest form of words, 
 between the accounts she gave on those four different occasions. 
 That was before Dr. Leach was first examined, but at a later 
 time another statement was made to him by Mrs. Bartlett. It 
 was on the 26th of January. He had seen her twice in the 
 interval, on the I4th and on the i8th, and on those occasions 
 she had consulted him, not with reference to the inquest, or 
 these matters at all, but with regard to her own private con- 
 dition of health. On the 26th of January he had a conversation 
 with her, and there was a matter about this conversation which 
 I brought out in cross-examination, and the full bearing of 
 which 1 do not suppose was obvious at the moment that I was
 
 128 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 making the cross-examination. That statement was never 
 intended for a public statement. In this country a doctor has 
 no privilege. There is one country at least in civilised Europe 
 where the privilege of the doctor is recognised, and where he is 
 not called upon just as we do not call upon a solicitor he is 
 not called on to reveal what has taken place in consultation. 
 Gentlemen, in this case Dr. Leach seems to have thought that 
 he would not be called upon, and could not be called upon, to 
 state what was then said. The first time he had asked for a 
 statement to enable him to give his evidence before the coroner; 
 the second time he receives the deepest and most delicate con- 
 fidence of Mrs. Bartlett, and it was so impressed on his mind 
 that that confidence was given to him in his character of a 
 physician that, when before the coroner, he struggled to escape 
 from the necessity of giving in evidence the statement which 
 had so been made. Gentlemen, I think you will follow me 
 when I say that that fact is a very material one for my case. 
 That statement was never made for the public ear. She never 
 knew that the words then spoken would go upon the coroner's 
 deposition, and be published to all the world. They contain 
 her statement made to the physician to whose skill she herself 
 had appealed for her own personal necessiiies, and I claim for 
 that statement this : it was not a statement offered to an 
 accusing world as an explanation of circumstances which had 
 cast suspicion upon her, it was a private communication of the 
 most private matter to the physician in whose skill she was 
 trusting for her own treatment, and it was a statement which 
 comes to you in such circumstances as to bear with it almost 
 the irresistible presumption that that statement is true. 
 
 Now, what is that statement ? I need not read it to you in 
 detail I am speaking in your correction, and in the correction 
 of those that heard it, and, if I do not read all that document in 
 detail, I will carefully give as far as I can its exact effect. It 
 began by a statement made to Dr. Leach with regard to the 
 marital relations betwetn her and her husband. How was that 
 statement brought about ? Gentlemen, at that moment nothing 
 had been said by her as to her having possession of chloroform, 
 but curiously enough, in a way which is absolutely inconsistent 
 with any consciousness of guilt, she had been discussing and 
 refuting, to use Dr. Leach's own remarkable word, refuting the 
 suggestion that had been made as to the other causes of death. 
 On the 26th, Dr. Leach says to her : " I have good news for you, 
 Mrs. Bartlett ; they say that chloroform is supposed to be the 
 cause of your husband's death." And he says you will observe 
 he had heard before about the relatives, and the suspicions that 
 they entertained "It is fortunate enough for you that it was 
 not prussic acid, or some matter of that kind, because then it
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 129 
 
 is possible, although he might have taken it himself, strong 
 suspicion would have attached to you," upon which she gives 
 this answer ; she says, " I wish it had been anything but 
 chloroform." Why ? Then comes the answer : " What I have 
 to tell you now requires a preface," and then, to her thinking in 
 the absolute secrecy of a confidence between herself and her 
 medical man, she goes on to give him this account of their 
 marital relations. A strange account. She says : " I was very 
 young, and when I married my husband he had the idea that a 
 man should have two wives, one for companionship and the 
 other for use, and it was for companionship that he chose me." 
 She says : " I was so young I did not understand the contract 
 I was making." And that is true ; for nearly three years after 
 she was married the greater part of her time was spent at a 
 boarding-school, or one of the convent schools of Belgium. She 
 said : " I did not understand the contract when I made it, but I 
 was loyal to it. For six years that contract was kept between 
 us, and then there came to my heart the wish that I too might 
 be a mother, and have a child at my knee to love me, and on 
 my entreaty my husband broke through the contract that had 
 been made, once, and once only." And there is a strong light 
 upon this from that book of Dr. Nichols', a book in which he 
 speaks of the proper and moral condition of men and women 
 after conception has once taken place " Once, and once only," 
 she says, " I was admitted to my hushand's love, and when the 
 months had gone by, instead of the child there came the weeks 
 of agony, and of life nearly lost in the labour-struggle, and from 
 that time my hope and wish for a child went, and we resumed 
 our old relations." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the circumstances under which that com- 
 munication was made were circumstances which, in my 
 contention before you, give it the sanction of truth. But there 
 is another remarkable thing which is stated by Dr. Leach. He 
 went to work I do not complain of him ; I think, looking at it, 
 he was right in this, that, when he found how important these 
 matters were getting, he should sit down quietly at home, 
 undisturbed by the clash and wrangle of examination and 
 cross-examination at the inquest and the trial, that he should 
 set down on paper, so far as he, quietly thinking, could remember, 
 the statements that had been made. But, gentlemen, what was 
 the impression on his mind ? He wrote that down, and he says 
 after the passage which I have paraphrased, although correctly 
 paraphrased I believe, " I personally was to some extent 
 cognizant of the fact up to this point before the 26th ; they had 
 been partly told me, partly implied, and partly gathered from 
 observation. The rest was nearly all new." Gentlemen, I 
 tried with great care I think you will bear me out to sift 
 
 I
 
 130 
 
 that statement, and to see how far it was observation, how far 
 it was information, that had given him knowledge of these facts, 
 and we do get this from him, that when she made that statement 
 to him it did not strike him as being an extraordinary and 
 unbelievable thing, but the relations which he had seen existing 
 between her and her husband, the way in which they spoke to 
 each other, the habitual tone of their companionship, came 
 back to his mind as to some extent supporting that statement. 
 Now, gentlemen, I can go no farther than that. There is no 
 more evidence to support it. It is amazing that there should be 
 so much, for in such a case, where marriage itself has become a 
 platonic relation, I do not imagine that others visiting at the 
 house, simply meeting the husband and wife, would guess, or 
 have any means of knowing, what the real state of things was. 
 But what I point out is this : so far as there is any evidence at 
 all in the case, it goes to support that statement. The state- 
 ment itself is one made in circumstances circumstances of 
 confidence with Dr. Leach which removed Mrs. Bartlett from 
 attempting an untruth gave her no object for inventing a story ; 
 and that statement, so far as the other evidence in the case is 
 concerned, is supported by that evidence, and not contradicted 
 by it. I do not pause to speak of the trivial nature of the con- 
 versation in the cab as they were going to the dentist ; there, 
 again, is a suggested contradiction, and, in the course of a case 
 like this, little matters toss up to the surface and disappear, and 
 that, I think, disappeared when Dr. Leach said that Mrs. 
 Bartlett was always trying to be cheerful and keep up her 
 husband's spirits, and in conversation and other ways would 
 make suggestions that would lighten the burden on him the 
 burden of anxiety, and no doubt at that moment the apprehen- 
 sion of pain, for an operation was going to be performed. 
 
 But now, gentlemen, there is a word I ought to say here. I 
 havecalledyourattentionto the circumstances in which that state- 
 ment was made, and I should not make another comment on it 
 but for the extraordinary way in which my learned friend Mr. 
 Poland insisted on examining Marshall, the police-constable, as 
 to the fact that Mrs. Bartlett was not called to give evidence as 
 a witness before the Coroner. I may say at once it was not 
 Mrs. Bartlett's act, and could not be on Mrs. Bartlett's election. 
 I have been greatly assisted in this case by my friends Mr. 
 Mead and Mr. Beal, and my friend Mr. Mead will be the first 
 to agree with me in the observation I am about to make, that I 
 think Mrs. Bartlett is greatly indebted, and I know that I 
 myself am greatly indebted, to the judgment and ability with 
 which Mr. Beal discharged the anxious and onerous duties that 
 fell on him in representing her at the inquiry before the 
 coroner and before the magistrate. If there had been a ques-
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 131 
 
 tion as to whether Mrs. Bartlett should be called as a witness 
 or not, I know him well enough to know that he accepted, as I 
 in a similar situation would accept, the full responsibility of the 
 course that was taken ; and my learned friend the Attorney- 
 General I thought had relieved me from any question of that 
 kind at all when he told you in his opening that no prejudice or 
 inference was to be drawn against Mrs. Bartlett from the fact 
 that she was not called as a witness at the inquest. But I go 
 farther. Dr. Leach had given at the inquest a kind of state- 
 ment that she had made to him, and my point to you is this : 
 If that statement put in evidence at the inquest had been 
 made for the purpose of diverting suspicion from herself, and 
 of justifying her acts in circumstances which otherwise would 
 have looked and told heavily against her it. might have been 
 the subject of suspicion. But Mrs. Bartlett had confided to her 
 doctor that most strange and delicate explanation of the 
 relations with regard to herself and her husband. He had 
 given it in evidence, and there was nothing for her to add. 
 She made that statement to Dr. Leach on January a6th ; she 
 stands by that statement now ; there was nothing for her to 
 add ; no reason for her to have gone into the witness-box and 
 exposed herself to the cross-examination (I was going to use an 
 epithet about it, but I refrain) of the solicitor whom Mr. Bart- 
 lett, senior, had employed at that inquest. It would have been 
 to expose herself to a trial as severe and terrible as a woman 
 could ever have undergone, and would have added nothing to 
 the statement she had already made, and which, through Dr. 
 Leach's lips, had been put on public record, of her share in the 
 transaction. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I pause for a very short time to call your 
 attention to the history of the illness, because my learned 
 friend the Attorney-General, in opening this case, suggested 
 that there were only three alternative explanations of his 
 death : either that the man took the chloroform by accident ; 
 or, said my learned friend, he took it with a suicidal intent ; 
 or it was administered to him by another person with the 
 intent to murder. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have called your attention fully, I hope not too 
 fully, to the medical questions which have arisen in this case, 
 and which affect the third of these theories namely, murder ; 
 but with regard to the others, I have a word or two to say; 
 for the matter is reduced to the idea of suicide, accidental 
 taking, or murder. 
 
 Gentlemen, you have heard from Dr. Tidy that of the cases 
 of death from the administration of liquid chloroform that are 
 recorded, by far the larger proportion and the overwhelming 
 majority are cases of suicide. So that suicide is by far the
 
 132 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 most common of the causes of death from liquid chloroform. 
 Gentlemen, let me make this observation to you before I enter 
 upon the consideration of the history of that illness ; it is not 
 for you to decide whether Mr. Bartlett committed suicide, or 
 whether he was murdered. That is not the question that is put 
 to you ; there being two alternatives, you are not to call upon 
 the defendant here to establish before you that Mr. Bartlett 
 committed suicide. No such burden falls upon those who 
 represent the defendant. The prosecution have to establish 
 before you beyond reasonable doubt that he was murdered, and 
 murdered by the hands of the defendant here ; and that is the 
 matter to which I have to address myself. But, when we have 
 to consider this question of the probabilities of the case, we 
 start thus : Dr. Tiuy, who knows the history of all these ca-es, 
 says that, apart from the evidence, the enormous preponder- 
 ance of probability would be on the side of suicide. Well, 
 let us examine what the condition of things was during the 
 illness. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I am not going day by day through the 
 record of those days, but as one's mind goes back over the 
 evidence that has been given, and traces the salient points in 
 the history of the illness, there are matters which it is not un- 
 desirable to call to your attention. The first point I should 
 like to put before you is this that you have as complete and 
 exact a record of all that took place during that illness as 
 probably a jury ever had in a case of this kind ; and this is by no 
 means unimportant. From the Qth of December to the 3ist of 
 December this illness was running its course ; and during the 
 whole of that time Mrs. Bartlett was under the immediate 
 inspecting eye, and under to some extent the hostile inspection, 
 of those who have been called as witnesses before you. Under 
 whose eye was this illness running its course? She wrote 
 every day, or nearly every day, to Mr. Baxter. Her husband's 
 heart was in his business work ; he was a man of whom we 
 hear that, when they were staying at Dover, he would get up at 
 three in the morning to catch the boat-train and come up to 
 London, go to Herne Hill, attend to his business, and go back 
 to Dover so late at night that he did not get back to his wife 
 sometimes till ten o'clock, so that he would sometimes only 
 spend five or six hours out of the twenty-four in her com- 
 pany. And when his illness b'gan, the first thing he told 
 the doctor was that he had been overworked both physically 
 and mentally ; and the first advice which the doctor gave him 
 was this that he should abstain altogether from all talk and 
 all thought of business, and keep his mind to different subjects 
 for a time. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, every day the prisoner wrote to Mr. Baxter, 
 just to say how her husband was getting on, and from time to
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE ! 3 3 
 
 time Mr. Baxter came to visit at the house, and he visited at 
 the house so late as the last three days before the death, when 
 he brought the mango chutnee, or something that has been 
 mentioned in the course of the case. Immediately after the 
 illness began she called in another witness, Dr. Leach. He 
 knew nothing of them ; he was a perfect stranger. The great 
 advantage was, with regard to him, that he lived close by, and 
 that he could come in constantly to attend upon her husband ; 
 and Dr. Leach has told you that he never could have wished 
 for a more attentive, a more faithful, or a more affectionate 
 nurse than she proved herself to be during all the period of that 
 illness. She had one failing, and only one her memory was 
 not very good ; but she kept a record from hour to hour of the 
 little incidents of the day and of the invalid's condition, and she 
 kept that record for the doctor to see. She tried to cheer her 
 husband from time to time ; she talked of going away ; she did 
 all she could to raise his drooping spirits ; she provided for the 
 doctor every sort of information that he could possibly want, in 
 order that, by testing the contents of the stomach when those 
 had been rejected, he might be able to understand exactly the 
 course of the trouble and the course of the treatment. Dr. 
 Leach was there, not daily only, but two or three times a day, 
 on many of the days during that period ; and Dr. Leach had 
 arranged, on the night of the 3ist, that he was to come again 
 on the morning of the 1st in order to visit Mr. Bartlett ; so that, 
 from the beginning to the end, she was under his independent 
 judgment. 
 
 But, gentlemen, there was another thing she knew, and her 
 husband knew, that there was one member of his family who 
 looked upon her with jealousy, suspicion, and dislike there 
 was one member of the family who used to visit at that house 
 it was the father, who had been promised a home for life and 
 who, for reasons which you can well imagine, had not been 
 allowed to continue an inmate of that home. He was the one 
 member of the family who visited at the house, and on the i8th 
 of December, in consequence of wnat the father had said, Dr. 
 Leach was asked to find another physician. The father had 
 said, according to himself, that he would like to send down a 
 physician. Well, that was very kind of him, for his money was 
 obtained from the son, and he would have sent down a physi- 
 cian at the son's expense ; but his statement that he would like 
 to send clown a physic .an was repeated to the husband, and the 
 husband, with an anxious desire to save his wife from any 
 chance of that terrible suspicion which now, in spite of all his 
 care, has fallen upon her, and which has condemned her to the 
 agony ot" this trial the husband speaks to the medical man, 
 and tells him that the family have not liked her, and have not 
 understood her ; that, if the illness goes on, and he does not
 
 134 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 get better, the family may say that she was poisoning him ; and 
 so he asked Dr. Leach to find some stranger, upon whom no 
 suspicion could fall, with whom there could be no doubt at all of 
 his absolute bona fides, and to call him in and let him see the 
 case. The husband says, " I will not be treated by him. You 
 alone," he says to Dr. Leach, " shall treat me, but, for my wife's 
 protection, call in a doctor to see me once, and let him form 
 his opinion, and be able to express an opinion if need be ;" and 
 so, on the igth of December, Dr. Dudley was called in, and 
 that absolute independent judgment we have ; and that inde- 
 pendent judgment was intended for the good purpose of shield- 
 ing the wife against the malice which he knew existed, and 
 which would in any case suggest that there had been foul play. 
 But she was under the inspection of the father-in-law himself. 
 He has been called into the witness-box, and he has told you 
 what he had to say. He complained, or suggested rather, that 
 there should be another doctor ; he complained with regard to 
 the nursing, and suggested that there should be another nurse. 
 Another nurse ! Why? The man who was ill, and who was 
 tended thus by his wife, as Dr. Leach tells you I think it was 
 Dr. Leach would not have listened to the suggestion of another 
 nurse. Dr. Leach did suggest another nurse afterwards but 
 for what reason ? Not because there was a failure of care in the 
 loving wife who was tending her sick husband, but because that 
 love had carried her to a devotion which was telling upon her 
 health because night after night, for thirteen or fourteen nights, 
 she had spent the restless and broken hours of the night, sitting 
 by and watching over her husband, and because the doctor 
 feared, not that the patient would be neglected, but that the 
 nurse would break down under the strain. But Mr. Bartlett 
 cherished his suspicions ; he complained that he was kept away. 
 He was one of the first persons to be communicated with. 
 When the death took place it was not to Mr. Dyson that she 
 telegraphed. She wrote to Mr. Dyson, just as she wrote to Mr. 
 Wood, the other executor ; but the three telegrams that were 
 sent off that morning were sent to Mrs. Matthews, to Mi-. 
 Baxter, and to Mr. Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett did not get that tele- 
 gram until a little later. He had heard from Mr. Baxter, before 
 he got his own telegram, that the death had taken place, and he 
 rushed off to the place where his son was lying dead ; he went 
 up to the bed where his son was lying, and smelt at his lips for 
 prussic acid. Why ? Because that preconceived idea that 
 idea against which the husband had tried to shield her was in 
 his mind ; and he was smelling there at his dead son's mouth 
 with the idea that he should find something to implicate and to 
 blame in that death the daughter-in-law whom he had always 
 disliked, and against whom the husband knew that he bore a 
 revengeful feeling. That is not all. He smells for the prussic
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 135 
 
 acid ; he turns to the doctor, and says, "We cannot let this 
 pass there must be an examination we cannot let this pass. 
 I will not have a doctor from the neighbourhood, or one con- 
 nected with the case. I insist that some independent doctor 
 shall come down to test the cause of death." And it does not 
 stop there. He goes and finds a solicitor, and he takes a solici- 
 tor down to Somerset House to inspect the will, which he hopes 
 to upset. He comes here and I describe not, because you saw 
 it, his conduct when the will was put before him, and he was 
 asked about the signature ; and he does not scruple now now 
 that the wife has no husband to protect her he does not scruple 
 now to tell you now from the witness-box that the foul accu- 
 sation that he made against her seven years ago for which 
 he then in writing expressed the greatest penitence as to 
 which he then confessed that it was an absolutely unfounded 
 slander on his part he does not scruple now to repeat that 
 slander, and to assert its truth, and to persist in the odious 
 accusation which he desires to revive after these years against 
 the reputation of one of his own sons and the honour of the 
 widow of the son who kept him. Gentlemen, this was the sort 
 of watching under which this illness passed this was the sort 
 of test that has been applied to her conduct. There was no 
 resource of suspicion, dislike, and malignity which has not been 
 given to the conduct of this case for that witness instructed 
 the solicitor to cross-examine the witnesses at the inquest. 
 
 Now then, gentlemen, that was the illness, passing under that 
 scrutiny, and subject to that construction, and what was the 
 history of that illness ? I will take this as rapidly as I can. 
 On the loth Dr. Leach was called in, and there was something 
 very remarkable about Mr. Bartlett's condition. It was not so 
 much that physical mischief was betrayed in the frame and con- 
 dition of the man, but he was hypochondriacal, he complained of 
 suffering from great sleeplessness, he was depressed in spirit, 
 and when his mouth was looked at there was a very curious 
 suspicion impressed upon the doctor's mind. The condition of the 
 gums, and the characteristic blue line, told Dr. Leach that there 
 had been mercury taken. We know not what had produced 
 this result, which might be produced either by large quantities 
 of mercury, or might be produced by a small quantity of mer- 
 cury administered in the case of a patient who had a peculiar 
 idiosyncrasy for that drug. But there it was, and, whatever the 
 cause of it, it so impressed itself on Dr. Leach's mind that he 
 waited until Mrs. Bartlett was out of the room, and then he 
 asked Mr. Bartlett, "Have you been taking any medicines?" 
 The answer was " No," and Dr. Leach has recorded the im- 
 pression which was then on his mind namely, that Mr. Bart- 
 lett had been to some quack, who, for real or supposed syphilis, 
 had administered mercury, which had produced this result. It
 
 136 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 was absolutely denied by Mr. Bartlett. He explained it after- 
 wards as being caused and certainly it was a very odd explana- 
 tion he explained it as being caused by a pill that he picked 
 out of a box of sample pills. It is a curious thing for a man to 
 take a pill in that way, and one is not surprised that Dr. Leach 
 did not readily accept this explanation ; and hence the suspicion 
 in his mind that there was some other explanation of the matter. 
 But the symptoms of gastritis or dyspepsia that existed on the 
 roth of December disappeared to some extent under Dr. Leach's 
 treatment ; and undoubtedly when Dr. Dudley was called in on 
 the igth of December, the physical condition of Mr. Bartlett 
 had greatly improved. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, there was a very curious relapse, in this 
 sense. Dr Leach has said that things got better a good deal 
 better from the iQth, I think, until the 24th or 25th. But he 
 used this expression : " On the 26th the appearance of the 
 lumbricoid worm upset everything again," and we know from 
 the evidence that the appearance of that worm had very 
 seriously affect* d the spirits and the mind of Mr. Bartlett. We 
 ha* e got the evidence of Mr. Dyson, who returned on the 26th 
 of December, and who, on the 26th and 2yth, visited at the 
 house, and he describes Mr. Bartlett as being at that time in a 
 very depressed condition. The improvement which had taken 
 place during the earlier days of the illness had been an im- 
 provement of physical symptoms, but there had been no reat 
 improvement in mental condition, because, if you will remember, 
 when Dr. Dudley tried to describe the condition Mr. Bartlett was 
 in on the iQth, he described him, I think, as restless, disinclined 
 to move, disinclined even to open his eyes, looking at him through 
 half-closed eyelids, and altogether in a condition which, if it were 
 not physically one of a serious character, was at all events one 
 which, as far as one can see, mentally and morally was a con- 
 dition of great depression. But the condition was enormously 
 increased in its gravity when you come to the 26th of December. 
 
 Let us just see what happened on that day. The lumbricoid 
 worm made its appearance, and Dr. Ltach says the man was 
 greatly alarmed and troubled about that worm. Some vermifuge 
 was given, santonine was given, to treat this. What is Dr. 
 Leach's statement on that treatment ? That if a vermifuge was 
 ftiven, and was not speedily removed from the system by pur- 
 gatives, the effect on the mind and spirits would be very serious 
 indeed so serious that Dr. Leach says, " I have experienced 
 them myself, and I wish nobody to experience for themselves 
 those serious consequences." What was the result ? The san- 
 tonine was administered, and Dr. Leach made every effort to 
 relieve the bowels and exclude the vermifuge. What was the 
 effect ? None whatever. The drug remained in the system, 
 and its effect must have been very great. He had had two
 
 137 
 
 purgative draughts and two globules of croton oil, and exactly 
 the same sort of thing was observed with regard to those 
 purgatives as Dr. Leach had observed as to the sedatives. 
 Something was given him to procure sleep. It had no effect 
 at all ; he was as restless as ever. Croton oil was administered 
 -a remedy so strong that one would have supposed it would 
 have produced immediate evacuation, with considerable loose- 
 ness ; and this amazing patient said to Dr. Leach that it was 
 very comforting, that he felt very comfortable, and he was very 
 glad to have it. But it had no effect. He had taken these 
 things into the stomach, and no effect was produced; he had 
 hot tea and coffee that were used to try and give them efficiency, 
 in vain. At 1 <st Dr. Leach galvanises the abdomen, still all in 
 vain ; and Dr. Leach says, " I gave it up in despair ; " and on 
 that day, the 26th, having exhausted all the means he had 
 adopted to remove this vermifuge, which was absolutely neces- 
 sary, Dr. Leach went away. He comes again, I think, in a day 
 or two. But just let me remind you of another thing. Dr. 
 Leach' said he should not come and see him again, and he tells 
 you there was no real reason, in his judgment, for coming to see 
 this man constantly, but whenever he suggested that he would 
 not come, Mr. Bartlett was distressed ; and he says on that day 
 Mr. Bartlett seemed distressed at his threat not to come. On 
 the 27th he had a somewhat better day, I suppose. Dr. Leach 
 says, " On the 27th he obtained some relief," and undoubtedly 
 if, after all the accumulation of remedies, he did get relief, the 
 probability is it was a relief of a kind which left him in a very 
 low and depressed condition. Then two days pass. He got 
 relief on the 27th, and on the 29th a fresh trouble comes. He 
 had been twice to the dentist's already. He had had removed 
 from his jaw a number of roots of teeth, and he had also had 
 removed a number of stumps which were left, and had been 
 sawn off, and now on the 29th, Dr. Leach says, " The jaw 
 symptoms became alarming." Gentlemen, that word has been 
 used by Dr. Leach over and over again. When they came 
 afterwards to examine the jaw, it turnea out that the necrosis 
 was of a superficial and not of a very important character ; but 
 on the 29th, the 3otn, and the 3ist, Dr. Leach says those 
 symptoms were alarming. Now, gentlemen, what does that 
 mean, or what would it mean to him ? We know that Mr. 
 Bartlett knew it, and I will tell you why ; necrosis had been 
 discussed between Dr. Leach and Mrs. Bartlett before the visit 
 to the dentist on the 3ist ; and so nervous was Mr. Bartlett with 
 regard to a matter of this kind that Dr. Leach endeavoured to 
 spare him the horror and dread of going to the dentist by not 
 telling him anything about it till arrangements had been made 
 and they v/ere ready to go. Then he did go. Before that 
 time there had been a conversation about necrosis.
 
 13& THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 The next piece of evidence is of enormous importance it is 
 the evidence of Mr. Roberts, the dentist because he says, when 
 the operation had been performed, as wejcnow it to have been 
 with some difficulty under nitrous oxide gas, double the usual 
 time being taken in the operation he said it was mentioned 
 before him that necrosis was setting in. What would that mean 
 to him, " Necrosis was setting in" ? "Necrosis" is a word of 
 itself suggestive of most unpleasant imaginations ; it means 
 death ; and in its adopted form of city of the dead, Necropolis, 
 has probably become familiar to people who would not attach 
 any meaning to the word otherwise it means death of the 
 structure, whatever it is. Necrosis of the jaw means the death 
 of the bone, coming usually, as the witness told you, either from 
 syphilis, or from an administration of mercury, whether syphilis 
 be present or not. Sometimes it may be checked, sometimes 
 only involving a purely superficial injury ; the bone may be re- 
 moved ; but sometimes, as the doctor told you, it involves grave 
 effects to the bone, until the bone structure itself of the jaw has 
 to be interfered with and removed ; occasionally involving, 
 if it progresses, consequences which are actually fatal to life. 
 
 It is true, when his body was examined after death, the necrosis 
 was found to be limited, and of a superficial character. On the 
 3 ist, it is true, Mr. Roberts did not attribute the most serious 
 aspect to the presence of necrosis ; but on that day, in Mr. 
 Bartlett's presence, it was said necrosis was setting in ; and 
 such an intimation coming to a man who had gone through the 
 illness which has been detailed to you in evidence, and which I 
 have but sketched in the merest outline, would necessarily and 
 severely affect his spirits. 
 
 Now one has come to the evening on which this happened. 
 We have got the account of that evening. The supper went 
 up, the oysters and the mango chutnee and so on, and it was 
 partaken of by Mr. Bartlett. The conversation with Mrs. 
 Doggett ; then the servant takes in the coals and says " Good- 
 night," and goes downstairs at, I think, about half-past eleven. 
 Twenty-five minutes past eleven she goes downstairs I am not 
 quite sure about the exact time it may be twenty-five minutes 
 past eleven, or at twenty-five minutes to twelve, she takes in the 
 coals, is told, as Mr. Bartlett is in bed, that she is to put the 
 basin outside, and there the evidence of eye-witnesses stops. 
 The next time that other persons, Mr. and Mrs. Doggett and 
 the doctor, go into that room, Mr. Bartlett is dead. Now, 
 gentlemen, just let me ask you to consider the statement that 
 Mrs. Bartlett has made with regard to that matter. Let us 
 consider what would, in the ordinary course of things, happen 
 after that. Observe, the day is over. Mrs Bartlett has no 
 friends with her with whom she is going to say farewell to the 
 old year and exchange congratulations on the birth of the new
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 139 
 
 one. She is alone with her husband in that front room. In the 
 ordinary course of things, now that he has gone to bed, she 
 would make up the fire for the night, she would go into the 
 back room and wash according to her usual wont, and she would 
 change the dress she had worn during the day for that lighter 
 and looser dress she was going to wear through the hours of the 
 night. Then, in the ordinary course of things, she would come 
 back to her place at the foot of his bed, and there settle to sleep. 
 If the statement of Mrs. Bartlett be, as I suggest to you it is, 
 the true statement of all that she can speak to as having taken 
 place on that night, what was it that happened ? I have called 
 your attention to the circumstances in which that statement was 
 made to Dr. Leach ; I have called your attention to the first 
 part of it, and his comment upon it. Now let me call your 
 attention to the statement which she made as to that night. 
 
 She told him that she had felt it a duty to her womanhood to 
 resist the resumption by her husband of the marital rights so 
 long abandoned ; she told him she had prepared herself to 
 resist, and to assist herself in her resistance to that attempt by 
 supplying herself with chloroform. Nobody who ever knew 
 anything about the use of chloroform would have dreamed of 
 doing such a thing as that. Mr. Dyson and Mrs, Bartlett were 
 probably equally ignorant of the effects of chloroform, and of 
 the way in which chloroform could have been used. But then 
 she said this. She told Dr. Leach that she possessed herself 
 of a bottle of chloroform, and secretly resolved that, in the 
 event of her husband approaching her, "she would put some of 
 the chloroform on to a handkerchief and wave it in his face, 
 believing thereby to make him lie down again to sleep, as often 
 as the occasion required. I congratulated her on not having 
 to try the experiment, saying that its accomplishment would 
 have been impossible, and in the scramble the bottle would 
 probably have capsized." " She said, never, having kept any- 
 thing from her husband, the presence of that bottle in her 
 drawer troubled her mind, and she felt she would do a very 
 wrong thing if she really used it, so determined to tell her 
 husband and make a clean breast of it ; so, on the last night of 
 the year, she sat down and broached the subject to him while 
 he was lying in bed. She told him to what extremes she was 
 driven, and gave the bottle into his hands. They talked affec- 
 tionately about their relations one with the other for a short 
 time, and he seemed much grieved. She told me no details of 
 their conversation, but I gather it was not a long one, for he 
 soon turned round and pretended to sleep or to sulk. Then, 
 soon after midnight, she fell asleep, and once waking, heard her 
 husband breathing in a peculiar manner, but her suspicions were 
 in no way aroused. She next awoke, probably an hour or two 
 later, with a cramped feeling of her left ami, the one round his
 
 I4o THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 foot ; she saw he was lying on his face ; she got up to turn him 
 into a more comfortable position, and was greatly alarmed at 
 his condition ; she rubbed his chest with brandy." Now, that 
 statement, made in the circumstances I have suggested to you, 
 gives it a great probability of its being the absolutely true 
 account. Is it a possible account? Why, the facts that we 
 know fit in with that statement in a way which I venture to 
 submit to you makes the account which I gather from that 
 statement, and from the facts given in evidence, not merely the 
 most probable, but almost the certain, history of the transactions 
 of that night. Observe those curious relations that had been 
 set up between them. The husband who was to succeed him 
 had been in fact, with his assent, selected. Mr. Bartlett had so 
 behaved as in fact to have given or dedicated his wife for the 
 future to Mr. Dyson. Then he desires to re-assume his rights, 
 but is resisted ; and on this night, when he has suffered during 
 the day, when he has undergone this operation, and must un- 
 doubtedly have suffered from his condition, he is told by her, 
 substantially, that the consent which he has given with regard 
 to Dyson's relations is treated by her as an irrevocable decision, 
 that to her he has ceased to enjoy the rights that a husband 
 may exercise, that she has taken him at his word, that written 
 word, in fact, which I have read you in that letter, and that, 
 from this time afterwards, co-partnership must remain co- 
 partnership, and shall never be allowed again to pass into the 
 associations of marriage. He was grieved, he appeared very 
 grieved, and he turned over. 
 
 Suppose you now sketch in imagination what took place. 
 Suppose she left the room as usual to wash, and he had placed 
 on the mantelpiece this bottle of chloroform. There was a 
 wineglass there, that wineglass was found afterwards, and 
 while she was away it was perfectly easy for him without leaving 
 his bed, lifting himself only upon his elbow, to pour into this 
 wineglass the less than half a wineglass of chloroform which 
 may have constituted that fatal dose, having poured that into 
 the wineglass, having replaced the bottle, then to have taken 
 it off. If he swallowed it in that way, and swallowed it up 
 quickly, there would not be, as there were not, appearances of 
 long exposure of the softer substances of the mouth and throat 
 to the chloroform. Having drunk it, he re-assumes his recum- 
 bent position, the chloroform passes down his throat and reaches 
 the stomach. There is no difficulty, nothing unreasonable, 
 nothing extraordinary, as tested by the cases which have been 
 quoted here ; within two or three minutes after that he might 
 be passing into a state of coma, that might have been when she 
 came back, or when she awoke, because how can she tell if this 
 was done when she was absent from the room, or while she 
 was dozing at the foot of his bed ? There might have been
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 141 
 
 when she awoke or when she came back this stertorous breath- 
 ing, which is one of the signs of having taken chloroform, and 
 which, if she had been a murderess, she never would have 
 mentioned as she did mention it to the man to whom she was 
 giving the account ; there may have been this breathing which 
 did attract her attraction, and was mentioned by her when tell- 
 ing it. Then she herself goes to sleep, and her husband's coma 
 deepens into insensibility, and insensibility passes into death. 
 There has been before the death just the turn upon the pillow, 
 the turn into the uncomfortable attitude described with the 
 head turned over on the pillow, but except that there has not 
 been, nor would science predict or expect to find, any other dis- 
 turbance or convulsion. And then the hours go by. She has 
 heard others, happier than she, in the other part of the house, 
 speaking to each other of the brighter hopes of the new year 
 that is beginning, but the first thing she awakens to in that 
 new year is the sad consciousness that the husband who might 
 not have fully deserved the love that he received, but who, at all 
 events, had treated her with affection, with confidence, with the 
 desire to protect her, she awakens to find that husband appar- 
 ently cold and dead. She springs to his side ; there is close to 
 the end of the mantelpiece, for we know it, this wineglass from 
 which he has taken that fatal draught, the woman's instinct is 
 at once to administer brandy in hopes to restore him to himself. 
 She pours into the glass some brandy and tries to pour it down 
 his throat, not perhaps with much success ; with shaking hand 
 she spills some brandy on his chest which the doctor smells 
 afterwards ; she tries to rub his chest with a little brandy. It 
 is no use ; she put'* back on the mantelpiece, where it was found 
 when they came into the room, this wineglass with the brandy 
 in it, a wineglass which only contained brandy ; there was no 
 admixture of chloroform with it, but a wineglass which her 
 husband had used for chloroform it well maybe. Mr. Doggett, 
 on first going in and smelling the glass, may have detected the 
 odour of chloroform about it, though it was only brandy it con- 
 tained. All we know is the glass was there, we know that that 
 part of the mantelpiece was within his reach. If you believe 
 and how dare you reject the statement which she in those cir- 
 cumstances made as to what took place on that night ? accept 
 that statement, the whole history is clear. There was no 
 scientific miracle worked by the grocer's wife under circum- 
 stances where it could not have been worked by the most 
 experienced doctor who ever gave himself to the study of this 
 matter. There was unhappily the putting within the reach of a 
 man who was broken by illness, and upon whom there had come 
 this disappointment, and absolute and final severance of the 
 effectual marriage tie between himself and his wife there was 
 the putting within his reach of the poison which he might have
 
 142 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 used, and which he probably did use, but there was nothing 
 more ; and from that moment there was not a word of hers, there 
 was not an action, not a look, which was not the look, or the 
 word, or the action of the loving wife who had nursed him 
 through his illness to this point, and who now found him sud- 
 denly gone for ever. She rushes upstairs, she calls the servant, 
 she bids her go and fetch the doctor as soon as she can ; not 
 content with that, she arouses the people in the house in the 
 hope that they may give some help, and then she breaks the 
 fire, and she waits till help comes, and to the first who comes in 
 to whom she can ask the question, and on whose judgment she 
 relies, the doctor, she says, " Doctor, is he really dead ? " and 
 the doctor goes to the bedside and looks, and feels, makes his 
 examination, and tells her he is really dead ; and then the 
 widow bursts into a passion of tears, and, when that passion of 
 tears has subsided, she is the first person to ask the doctor, 
 " What can he have died of ? " She was anxious to have the 
 mystery solved. The doctor says, " I do not know ; I think a 
 small bloodvessel may have broken, but I cannot tell ; there 
 must be a post-mortem examination." A post-mortem examina- 
 tion she does not shrink from. She sai'd, " Must there be an 
 inquest?" as almost every one has said when death in sudden 
 form has come and stricken down the dear one. Must this be 
 open to public investigation must all this be gone through ? 
 The inquest she shrinks from, but the post-mortem she of all 
 people is the one most anxious to have. She desires not only 
 to have the post-mortem examination, but to have it as 
 promptly as possible, and to have it conducted by the 
 highest skill. " Spare no expense." " Cannot he come 
 to-day?" 
 
 Why, gentlemen, " Squire's Companion " has been produced, 
 from which it is said she would know about chloroform. It 
 tells you nothing but that chloroform is volatile. If there had 
 been the smallest knowledge or idea in her mind of chloroform 
 having produced the effect, and of her being blamed, the delay 
 in the post-mortem examination would have been delightful to 
 her, a relief. But she must have it. She chafed and was 
 restless in the idea that for one hour this mystery should be 
 left unsolved. " Spare no expense ; fetch any one," she sug- 
 gested. "What could it be?" The doctor says, "Can it be 
 prussic acid?" "No." "Could it be any other poison ?"- 
 "There -was no other poison he could get without my knowing 
 it." "Could it be anything else opium?" "I am so glad I 
 did not give him the pills ; " and she goes to the cupboard and 
 takes out the two pills from the box and shows them to Dr. 
 Leach, and she has not given them to him. And from begin- 
 ning to end her every action and word and thought appears to 
 be the act and word and thought of a woman who is chafing
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 143 
 
 under the cruel uncertainty : What can it be that has suddenly 
 robbed her of her husband ? 
 
 There is another suggestion made about the death. I am 
 not sure if at that moment, or, if not then, afterwards, the 
 doctor suggested chlorodyne it was afterwards, after the post- 
 mortem examination ; but on that morning she was combating 
 the idea of poisoning. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE WILLS : It was then, Mr. Clarke. 
 
 Mr. CLARKE : I am obliged to your lordship. It emphasises 
 what I said ; I am glad. There was a bottle of chlorodyne on 
 the mantelpiece. To show how little you can rely on the 
 evidence of witnesses as to what they found at that particular 
 time, you know Doggett swore he made a careful examination 
 of the room, and there was no bottle on the mantelpiece, and 
 Dr. Leach as distinctly swore there was a small bottle contain- 
 ing chlorodyne. Dr. Leach suggested, " Could he have died of 
 chlorodyne?" 
 
 Gentlemen, if there had been any thought in her mind of 
 guilt of this death, she would have sprung at the idea. How 
 could she tell the difference between chloroform and chloro- 
 dyne the difference there might be in post-mortem appear- 
 ances ? But when the doctor suggested chlorodyne, she would 
 not have it the last thing in the world. " Chlorodyne ! No, 
 he never swallowed it." " If he took it into his mouth he might 
 have swallowed it?" "No, it is impossible," she said; "he 
 only used a little chlorodyne to rub his gums with ; he could 
 not have swallowed enough for that purpose ;" and there ends 
 the interview. She has demanded that immediate examination 
 which, if she had been guilty, she must have known would be 
 the surest way of rinding out her own guilt. She has repudiated 
 and refuted the suggestion of the doctor with regard to other 
 modes of death which would have freed her from any imputation. 
 
 But, gentlemen, what happens afterwards ? She sends im- 
 mediately for Mrs. Matthews, for Mr. Bartlett, and for Mr. 
 Baxter. Mrs. Matthews is an old friend. Mrs. Matthews 
 comes and spends the day with her. There is no attempt to 
 get into solitude in order that she may run no risk of letting 
 out to others- the terrible secret of a crime. She is with the 
 people she has been in the habit of meeting. She spends the 
 day with Mrs. Matthews. On the following day, the Saturday, 
 the post-mortem examination takes place. Now observe, was 
 there in her mind on that day of the post-mortem examination 
 any doubt, any anxiety, as to her being incriminated ? What 
 did she do ? The post-mortem examination took place. The 
 doctor communicated to her that there had been a smell of 
 chloroform, and he told her at the same time, on the Saturday, 
 that he believed that the doctors were wrong, and that it was 
 not chloroform, but chlorodyne. But what was her act ? That
 
 144 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 bottle of chloroform was at that moment in the drawer in that 
 room in one of those rooms ; but what was her behaviour after 
 the post-mortem examination ? She did not go and touch the 
 drawer. She did not suggest that she should be allowed to 
 take anything away. She took her keys from her pocket. She 
 gave them to Dr. Leach to go and fetch the drawer, and he 
 brought the drawer. She took from it the hat she was to go 
 away in. He took the drawer, and put it in its place ; and, 
 except the hat she wore to go away, the only other thing she 
 took away was the cloak, the cloak which she was actually 
 willing to go without, about which that witness Bartlett said, 
 " I will be responsible for the cloak," and he felt whether there 
 were pockets in it, and whether anything was being taken away 
 in those pockets, before he gave her the cloak. In the hat and 
 cloak she went away from the house. It was suggested that 
 the keys should be given to her solicitor. That was resisted ; 
 they were not given ; they were given into the impartial hands 
 of Dr. Leach ; and away she went from that house. And it was 
 not until days after, when Dr. Leach said that the coroner's 
 officer Mr. Dyson gave it in evidence had got all he wanted 
 from the rooms, it was not until after that she went back to the 
 rooms and took away this bottle of chloroform. Then she threw 
 it away. 
 
 Gentlemen, it is true she threw the bottle of chloroform away, 
 just as Dyson threw away the bottles from which he had taken 
 the chloroform ; but she did not throw away that bottle of 
 chloroform until three days after Dyson had thrown away those 
 bottles ; and before she threw away that bottle of chloroform 
 there had occurred that remarkable conversation between her 
 and Dyson with regard to which Mrs. Matthews spoke. Gentle- 
 men, on Monday, the 4th of January, there was that conversation, 
 there was the conversation between them, and when Mrs. 
 Matthews went into the room she heard Dyson say, " You told 
 me that Edwin would die soon ; " she heard her deny it, and 
 then she saw him bow down on the piano and go out, saying, 
 "I am a ruined man." He had been at that interview bothering 
 her about a piece of paper what piece of paper ? Why should 
 he bother her about that piece of paper ? It was a piece of 
 paper on which he had written some verses to her which I 
 suppose he thought were in tone and character inconsistent 
 with his position, and verses which he did not wish to 
 come before the public eye, and therefore at that visit, when 
 she was under the grief of the awful calamity which had come 
 upon her three days before, he was bothering her to return his 
 wretched verses to him. For what purpose ? In order that he 
 could get rid of them, and that they should not rise up in public 
 witness against him. You will decide whether or not his answer 
 to the question as to whether he had not demanded to have all
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENCE 145 
 
 his letters back again was true. It is a trifle she was angry 
 on the 4th because he bothered about a piece of paper with 
 verses on it at such a time as that ; but she behaved to him far 
 better than he behaved to her she did keep his verses for him, 
 she gave him those verses on Saturday, the gth of January, and 
 when she was in confidence telling Dr. Leach the story of that 
 night, and Dr. Leach asked her, " Who got the chloroform for 
 you?" she did not tell him ; she did not bring Dyson or bring 
 his name into this controversy, but she gave him back his 
 verses ; and since then she has never had a conversation with 
 him ; since then the only time during which she has heard the 
 voice which had become f.imiliar to her during those months 
 has been the time when she heard it from the witness-box 
 against her when she stands upon trial for her life. But upon 
 that gth of February one thing happened ; it was from her lips 
 that the first challenge came to him, or to any one, to accuse 
 her of this crime. He got his miserable paper on the Qth of 
 February, and then he was satisfied. He got rid of the bottles, 
 and his verses had disappeared, and he, I suppose, felt himself 
 a little safer ; but then he said something about the chloroform, 
 and she turned on him angrily and said, " Do not mince 
 matters ; say, if you want to say it, that I gave him the 
 chloroform." Gentlemen, apart from all the scientific aspects 
 of the case, apart from all the matters I have discussed, I am 
 sorry at such length, and I desire not to occupy your time 
 unnecessarily on this apart from all the scientific difficulties, 
 there stands this fact, that from the moment of her husband's 
 death every word and act and look of hers has been the word and 
 act and look of a woman conscious of her innocence, though 
 shrinking, and naturally shrinking, from the suspicion which at 
 last she saw would gather with awful force and strength around 
 her. Every word and look and action has been the word and 
 look and action of innocence. The first challenge to the world 
 to bring this charge came from her lips. 
 
 I have now, I think I hope I have to the best of my ability 
 dealt with the topics in this case, and to you the responsibility 
 will shortly pass. I do not desire to touch you, or to influence 
 your judgment, by anything more than by a reasonable and fair 
 appeal to you as to the conclusions formed on the evidence 
 before you, but it has not been possible for me to discharge 
 during these days the duty which I have been honoured to bear 
 without a deepening feeling of the intensest interest in the result 
 of this case. 
 
 This woman has not had the happiest of lives. She has been 
 described to you as one who had no friends. She found a 
 friend in Mrs. Matthews, she found another friend in continuing 
 the acquaintance of the nurse who was called before you, but 
 beyond that we know of no friends, and the habits of her 
 
 K
 
 1 4 6 THE TRIAL OF ADELAIDE BARTLETT 
 
 husband's life left her much alone. There is no hint of mis- 
 conduct or wrong upon her part at any time of this association 
 of husband and wife except the trivial and malignant invention 
 of that witness who came first. She had no friends in the sense 
 that has been mentioned, but she had one friend her husband. 
 He did stand by her, strange as his ideas may have been ; 
 disordered, as it would seem from some things that have been 
 said, as his intellect in some respects must have been. Witness 
 the statements that were made by him, for instance, to Dr. 
 Leach. Yet still in his strange way he stood by her and he 
 protected her. He was affectionate in manner, and, when her 
 reputation was assailed, he defended it as only the husband 
 could defend it. And to her at this moment it may seem most 
 strange that he, to whom she had given this persistent affection, 
 even during the years of such a life, should be the one of whose 
 foul murder she now stands accused. And if he himself could 
 know what passes among us here, how strange, how sorrowful, 
 it might seem to him ; how strange that such an accusation 
 should have been formulated and tried in court in spite of the 
 efforts which he endeavoured to make to prevent it ; the pre- 
 cautions which perhaps, by his own rash and despairing act, he 
 too completely defeated. 
 
 Gentlemen, that husband too has gone, but she is not left 
 without a friend ; she will find that friend here to-day, in the 
 spirit which guides your judgment and clears your eyes upon 
 this case. It is a great responsibility for men to be called 
 suddenly from their business and their pleasures, and to be 
 shut off, as you have been, from the ordinary habits of your life, 
 to decide upon issues of life and death. There are trivial 
 incidents sometimes about the conduct ot every case, but we, 
 the ministers of the law, are ministers of justice, and I believe 
 that, as a case like this goes on from day to day, there comes 
 into your hearts a deep desire, which is in itself a prayer, that 
 the spirit of justice may be among us, and may guide and 
 strengthen each one to fulfil his part. That invocation is never 
 in vain. The spirit of justice is in this court to-day, to comfort 
 and protect her in the h'our of her utmost need. It has 
 strengthened, I hope, my voice ; it will, I trust, clear your eyes 
 and guide your judgment. It will speak in calm and measured 
 tones when my lord deals with the evidence which aroused 
 suspicion, and also with the evidence which I hope and believe 
 has demolished and destroyed that suspicion, and that spirit will 
 speak in firm and unfaltering voice when your verdict tells to 
 the whole world that in your judgment Adelaide Bartlett is Not 
 Guilty.
 
 THE BACCARAT CASE. 
 
 [This action, in which Sir William Gordon-Gumming, Bart., 
 was the plaintiff, and Mrs. Arthur Wilson, Mr. Arthur 
 Stanley Wilson, Mr. C. Lycett Green, Mrs. Lycett Green, and 
 Mr. Berkeley Levett were the defendants, was tried at the 
 Royal Courts upon the 1st June, 1891, and following days, 
 before the Lord Chief Justice of England (Lord Coleridge) 
 and a special jury. The action was for slander, in alleging 
 that the plaintiff cheated at cards, and the defendants 
 pleaded that the accusation was true. Sir Edward Clarke, 
 O.C., M.P. (Solicitor-General), and Mr. C. F. Gill were 
 counsel for Sir William Gordon-Gumming ; and the de- 
 fendants were represented by Sir Charles Russell, O.C., 
 M.P., Mr. Asquith, Q.C., M.P.,and Mr. C. W. Matthews. 
 The trial concluded on the gih June, and the jury found a 
 verdict for the defendants.] 
 
 The following speeches were delivered on behalf of the 
 plaintiff: 
 
 Opening Speech, Monday, 1st June, 1891. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : May it please your lordship, 
 gentlemen of the jury, You heard from the statement of the 
 pleadings which has just been made by my learned friend Mr. 
 Gill, who, with me, has the honour and responsibility of appear* 
 ing for Sir William Gordon-Gumming in this matter, what is 
 the question which you have to decide. It is a simple question, 
 ay or no, did Sir William Gordon-Gumming cheat at cards ? 
 .It is a serious question, involving his honour, his reputation, his 
 whole career. It is an interesting question, for, as you know, the 
 interest of this case is. not confined and could not be confined 
 to those who are actually parties to it. The matter has been, 
 as we know, discussed already in the press and elsewhere, and
 
 148 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 the persons whose names are mentioned in the case, some of 
 whom will necessarily be called as witnesses before you, are 
 persons of the highest station and consideration, and the cir- 
 cumstances out of which this accusation arose were circum- 
 stances of a character which have naturally made them a matter 
 of great public interest. Comments have been made in the 
 press upon the conduct of the gentleman whom I represent, and 
 some of you gentlemen may have read those comments and may 
 have been led already to form an impression, it may be adverse 
 to the plaintiff, in this matter. I am satisfied, however, gentle- 
 men, if any such opinion has suggested itself to your minds ; if 
 you have formed an imperfect judgment, on imperfect informa- 
 tion, as to what the circumstances of this case have been, I am 
 quite sure that I, as Sir William Gordon-Cumming's counsel, 
 can trust you at once to dismiss all such impressions from your 
 mind, and to set yourself steadily to discharge the responsible 
 duty of deciding upon this case, determined to come to your 
 decision guided simply by the evidence which is given before 
 you, and by your conscientious judgment upon that evidence 
 when you have thoroughly considered it. I have said, gentle- 
 men, it is a grave and important case ; that it involves the 
 honour and the future career of a gentleman and a soldier. Sir 
 William Gordon-Cumming is not yet forty-three years of age, 
 but for twenty-three years he has served his country in the 
 army, and served it with distinction. In 1879 he was in the 
 Zulu War, and fought in the battle of Ulundi, and he wears one 
 clasp upon his medal for that war. In 1883 he was in the 
 trenches of Tel-el Kebir, and wears the Egyptian medal with 
 one clasp for that engagement. In 1884 he was in the Camel 
 Corps in Egypt, and for engagements at the wells at Gubat and 
 at Abu Klea he has two clasps. He has risen in the service 
 which he has been in so long, till now he is Lieutenant-Colonel 
 of the Scots Guards. He comes of an old family. He is not 
 a man of scanty means. He is a baronet, with a place in Scot- 
 land, and a residence in London, and he has for many years 
 past appeared to enjoy everything that would make life happy 
 and pleasant ; with great reputation, serving in a profession to 
 which he was devoted, and in which he had distinguished him- 
 self ; with ample means, and enjoying the friendship of the 
 most distinguished, most considered, most illustrious persons in 
 the land ; and he now finds himself in court here to face an 
 accusation that he, after a life hitherto so spent in the enjoy- 
 ment of privileges and advantages such as those I have pointed 
 to, suddenly descended to cheat at cards, to attempt to fob one 
 or two of his oldest friends. Now, gentlemen, it is a grave 
 accusation and one that wants to be seriously considered. In 
 opening this case to you I shall as far as possible avoid any
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 149 
 
 comment upon the conduct of those persons who have been 
 concerned in the matter and through whom this accusation has 
 arisen ; and if it be necessary to make comments, they must be 
 made by me at a later stage of the case. In opening the case 
 to you I desire to put, as simply as I possibly can, and without 
 attempting to distribute blame amongst any of those who are 
 mentioned, the circumstances out of which this accusation 
 arose. 
 
 In the Leger Week in 1890, Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 was invited by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson to stay for a few 
 days at their house at Tranby Croft for the Doncaster Races, 
 Tranby Croft being situated not far from Doncaster. I have 
 told you that Sir William Gordon-Gumming enjoyed the most 
 distinguished friendships and acquaintances. He has been 
 honoured with the acquaintance of the Prince of Wales for 
 twenty years, and for ten years the Prince has honoured him 
 by his personal and private friendship. As long ago as 1881 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming was the guest of the Prince and 
 Princess of Wales at Sanciringham, and on two occasions since 
 then he has been admitted to that honour ; and up to the night 
 of the loth September, 1890, there had been upon the part of 
 His Royal Highness towards Sir William Gordon-Gumming a 
 constant and sustained friendship a friendship of personal 
 intimacy, greatly honouring to, and greatly prized by, Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming; and there is no doubt that it was 
 rather as a friend of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales 
 than as a personal friend of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson that 
 Sir William Gordon- Gumming was invited to form one of the 
 party at Tranby Croft in September, 1890. Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming had not known very much of the Wilsons. 
 He had stayed at their house at Tranby Croft for two or three 
 days in the year 1885 for the Doncaster Races, and he had the 
 pleasuve of dining at their house in London upon some few 
 occasions, but that was all the knowledge he had of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Arthur Wilson. You have heard the names of the 
 defendants in this case : Mrs. Arthur Wilson, her son, Arthur 
 Stanley Wilson, Mr. and Mrs. Lycett Green, Mrs. Lycett 
 Green having been a Miss Wilson. In the year 1885 Mr. 
 Lycett Green married Miss Wilson. Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming's acquaintance with them was, therefore, of a very 
 slender kind indeed. He met Mr. Lycett Green on one occa- 
 sion in the year 1888, and dined at their house in York upon 
 that occasion, but, with that exception, I believe he had not 
 seen Mr. and Mrs. Lycett Green until he went to Tranby Croft 
 in September, 1890. Mr. Arthur Stanley Wilson he had not 
 seen and did not know at all at the time he went as a guest to 
 Tranby Croft in 1890. Now, gentlemen, the party was made
 
 150 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 up -in London, and on Monday, the 8th of September, 1890, Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming travelled down to Tranby Groft with 
 his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and other members of 
 the party who were assembling for the races. They arrived at 
 Tranby Croft upon the afternoon of the 8th of September, and 
 I suppose the first assembly at the house was when they met at 
 dinner upon the evening of the 8th. I need not go through a 
 list of those who formed the party assembled at Tranby Croft, 
 though the names of some of them of course will have to be 
 mentioned, but there is no necessity now for my going through 
 a list of the names of those who had nothing whatever to do 
 with the circumstances that afterwards took place ; suffice it to 
 say, that amongst those who went down in this party were 
 Lord Coventry, General Owen Williams, and Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett, who was a subaltern in the ist Battalion Scots Guards, 
 and known, of course, to Sir William Gordon-Gumming. The 
 other names I need not trouble you with, because I do not 
 think they will be mentioned, or, at all events, many of them, 
 in the course of the case. They dined at Tranby Croft upon 
 the evening of the 8th of September, and after dinner there 
 was music and conversation, and at about eleven o'clock some 
 one suggested the playing of baccarat. It appears that Tranby 
 Croft was not a place where baccarat had been played before. 
 They had no proper table for playing baccarat, and it appears 
 that upon this occasion, in the library of the house or in some 
 room where there was a good deal of furniture, three whist 
 tables were put together in order to form a baccarat table. 
 Now, gentlemen, I daresay I may assume that a good many of 
 you are not acquainted at all with the game of baccarat, and it 
 is necessary that I should explain to you how the game is 
 played, and I think before you have mastered the game you 
 will see how important it is to note with regard to any circum- 
 stances that took place at that game what the opinion and 
 belief is of two persons who are sitting at the baccarat table. 
 Now, let me tell you, gentlemen, how the game of baccarat is 
 played. At a place where this game is habitually played, the 
 table intended for the purpose of playing baccarat has a line 
 along it near the edge, behind which the players keep their 
 stakes. A bank is kept and the banker and the croupier are, 
 so to speak, partners in the bank. The banker says that he 
 will make a bank of a particular sum, and the banker sits upon 
 one side of the table, the croupier sitting opposite to him. 
 Four packs of cards are taken that is, 208 cards shuffled 
 up together and placed in front of the banker, slanting 
 thus, forming a large heap of cards, from which the 
 banker from time to time takes those he wants to use for 
 the immediate purpose of the game. The banker proceeds to
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 151 
 
 deal, but he does not deal to all the players, but only two 
 persons, besides the banker himself, receive any cards, the table 
 being divided into what are called two tableaux. All the 
 players upon the right of the bank make one tableau, and their 
 success or loss depends upon the cards dealt to one of their 
 number, and all the players upon the left form another tableau, 
 there being one player sitting upon the left, to whom the cards 
 are dealt. I am bound to say it seems to me to be about the 
 most unintelligent mode of losing your own money, or getting 
 somebody else's, I ever heard of, because it appears that there 
 is no room in any part of the game for anything like what may 
 be called skill or judgment. However, it is a favourite game in 
 some places, and I suppose has its attractions, and it is played 
 in the way I am now describing. The dealer taking the cards 
 proceeds to deal one card face downwards upon the right to the 
 player there who represents that tableau ; he puts one card face 
 downwards upon the left to the corresponding player for the 
 left tableau, and one card face downwards to himself. He 
 repeats that process by dealing another card face downwards 
 to the player on the right, to the player on the left, and to him- 
 self. Then he looks at his cards, and unless he declares or 
 shows his cards, he offers a card to the other two players. 
 Either one of them may take one card and no more, and that 
 card is laid down upon the table face upwards. The object is 
 to get eight or nine. If a player receiving cards receives a 
 three and a six, he has nine, which is a natural, or if he receives 
 a three and a five that makes eight, which is also a natural. 
 The player declares his cards, and if the dealer has not equally 
 good cards, he loses the whole of that side of the table. Any 
 player may stake, subject to conditions as to the amount of the 
 bank, as much as he pleases. Except in the case of the player 
 receiving the cards, the other players make their stakes without 
 receiving any cards at all, trusting simply to what happens to 
 the cards dealt to the player representing the tableau. The 
 result is declared, and the banker wins or loses as the case may 
 be, on the one side or the other, or both sides, and the croupier 
 who sits opposite and takes care of the counters representing 
 the amount of the bank, has the duty of paying to those who 
 have won, and of receiving from those who have lost. In this 
 game it would, of course, be troublesome to use coins and 
 thereby have a great amount of coin upon the table, and it 
 would be, I do not say impossible, but unsatisfactory, to use 
 pieces of paper with sums of money upon them, for a reason 
 which I will show you presently. It is important to the banker 
 as well as the croupier to see what has been staked by each of 
 the players sitting at the table, and, therefore, instead of using 
 either coins or written paper, counters are used made of leather,
 
 152 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 of different patterns, different sizes, and different colours, repre- 
 senting different amounts of money. I have in my hand 
 specimens of counters for different amounts : the brown one I 
 hold in my hand is marked ^10; here is one for ^2, and 
 another for i, and this bright red one is for .5, and then 
 there are some smaller ones representing los. and $s. The 
 observation you will make at once upon that, gentlemen, I 
 think, is that these counters are very well adapted for the 
 purpose of playing this game, because it is extremely easy to 
 see what it is that has been staked by either of the players; and 
 that is one of the reasons, I presume, why these counters are 
 used, and why they are made of different sizes and different 
 colours, because it is most important, as I have said, to the 
 banker that he should know what has been staked by his 
 opponents. The bank is limited to a particular amount, and 
 upon the occasion of the two nights in question, they began 
 by the bank being limited to ^100, and the meaning of that 
 is that the banker gets ^100 worth of counters and pro- 
 ceeds to play with them. He cannot lose more than ^100, 
 because when he has lost all his counters his bank is at an end, 
 and he never can be called upon by the players to pay more 
 than is represented by the counters that are actually at the time 
 in the hands of the croupier. But there is another reason, and 
 a very strong reason, why the banker would be keen to see 
 what each player had staked on either side, and though it is a 
 little difficult to explain, I will try and make it as simple as 
 possible. The banker is playing against two separate players, 
 and supposing the banker had seven, and the player upon his 
 right had six, and the player upon his left hand eight, the banker 
 would have to pay the eight and would receive from the six ; 
 he would pay all that was staked upon the side where the cards 
 were lying with eight and receive all that was staked upon the 
 side where the cards were lying with six ; and when the banker 
 has to consider the question of whether he shall take a third 
 card or not, he always looks to see upon which side of the table 
 there is more money, or whether it is equal. The onlv question 
 arising, as I understand, upon which there is any difference of 
 opinion is whether when you have got five you should take 
 another card or not. If you have four you always take another 
 card. If you have six you never take another card. If you 
 have five it is a question whether you shall take another card 
 or not, because the object being to get nine you may by 
 taking another card be worse off than you were before. 
 Tens do not count. If your two cards together make thirteen 
 your score is three. If your cards are two and a court card 
 your score is two. If you have a three and a one, making four, 
 and you take a card and get a nine, your score, instead of being
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 153 
 
 four, is only three, so that you are worse off than you were before 
 because you cancel the ten and only count the remainder. 
 Therefore the banker who has got to decide whether he will or 
 not take another card himself has to be guided by knowing what 
 the cards are that have been turned up face upwards upon the 
 right hand and left hand sides respectively and also it may 
 depend upon the amount of money which is on either side as to 
 whether he thinks it worth while to take another card or not. 
 Supposing, for instance, he had dealt to the player upon the 
 right hand side a card face upwards making nine, he would 
 know that that player could not have more than four, because if 
 the player had originally had six he would not have taken a 
 further card at all, and if he had five and decided to take a 
 further card and took a nine then he could only be four, so that 
 the banker in that case would know if he had a six in his own 
 hand he would be sure to win the money upon that side of the 
 table. Then, as to the other side, whether he should play 
 against it would depend equally upon the card that he had 
 turned up there, and if he knew that he was going to win upon 
 one side where the larger amount of money was he would pro- 
 bably rest content by taking the money that had been staked 
 upon the side he won upon and being prepared to pay the 
 smaller amount upon the other side. Therefore, as I have en- 
 deavoured to point out to you, the amount of money that stands 
 upon the tableau as staked by the individual players, is of great 
 importance to two persons, namely, the banker and the croupier. 
 Upon the two occasions upon which it is alleged that Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming cheated at baccarat his Royal High- 
 ness the Prince of Wales was the banker and General Owen 
 Williams was the croupier. I do not doubt that it will be my 
 duty to put into the witness-box his Royal Highness the Prince 
 of Wales and General Owen Williams, and I think I shall 
 satisfy you by their evidence that upon those two evenings, when 
 they were the two persons directly interested and concerned in 
 noticing the stakes of the players, they saw nothing of any im- 
 proper practice upon the part of Sir William Gordon-Gumming. 
 Now, gentlemen, I have described, not indeed in great detail, 
 but I hope I have succeeded in making reasonably intelligible, 
 the game which they were playing at this place, Tranby Croft. 
 But there is one additional matter I must mention to you which 
 is of importance. I have told you that it would be important 
 for the banker to note what money was upon either tableau, and 
 the banker always does note it, being anxious as a rule to have 
 the two sides of the table pretty even, and where it so happens 
 that a much larger amount is upon one tableau than upon the 
 other it is quite usual for the banker to call attention to the cir- 
 cumstance, and then a player who is sitting upon the other side
 
 154 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 where the larger amount of money is sometimes says : " I will 
 go for .5, ^10, or ^20 upon the other side," not putting the 
 money upon the table, but stating the amount, and so putting a 
 stake upon the other tableau, in order, as is desirable, to equa- 
 lise the two sides of the table. Upon the evening in question 
 at Tranby Croft Sir William Gordon-Gumming will tell you 
 that either upon two occasions or three, certainly on two occa- 
 sions, attention was called by the banker to the fact that there 
 was not so much money upon one side as the other, whereupon 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming said, " I will go ^25 upon the 
 other side," not, of course, putting the coin down to represent it, 
 but saying it, and saying it in the hearing of everybody, and 
 winning and receiving from General Owen Williams his money 
 upon both these occasions. Now, gentlemen, that is the way in 
 which this game is played. Upon the evening of the 8th, as I 
 have told you, they had no baccarat table, but three whist tables 
 were put together, which certainly would not give room for 
 many players. They were sitting tolerably close together, and 
 the others of the party who were not playing were standing 
 about in the room, where I believe smoking was going on and 
 glasses were upon the table. However, it was a very small 
 affair, three whist tables being put together, and the players sit- 
 ting pretty closely together. Upon that evening Mrs. Wilson 
 was sitting next to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 
 and next to her was sitting Mr. Levett. Then came Mr. 
 Arthur Wilson, then Sir William Gordon-Gumming, and then 
 Lord Edward Somerset, a'nd then General Owen Williams. Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming was sitting next but one to the crou- 
 pier who had to receive and pay the money ; almost opposite to 
 his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who was dealing the 
 cards. There was one other person who had a duty connected 
 with the game which I may as well mention, and that was the 
 duty of dealing with the counters, and Mr. Reuben Sassoon on 
 both those evenings took charge of the counters. He let the 
 players have as many counters as they would, taking a note 
 of the amount they had so received, and at the end of 
 the evening's play each player returned the counters he 
 had in his possession. Mr. Reuben Sassoon made a note as to 
 whether he owed money or was to receive, and at the end of 
 two or three days' play, as the case might be, that would be 
 settled by Mr. Sassoon. Upon this occasion I have told you 
 the position in which these ladies and gentlemen were sitting. 
 The tables were not of equal height ; the table at which his 
 Royal Highness was sitting as banker was the middle table and 
 higher than the others, so that it was rather difficult to get in 
 the counters. As a rule, I believe a rake is used the croupier 
 has a small rake and draws towards him by means of that rake,
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 155 
 
 the counters lyin^ upon the table, but that could not be done 
 with tables of uneven height, and Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 having a paper before him for another purpose, which I will 
 mention in a moment, put his stake upon that paper, and when 
 the coup was decided handed it up upon the paper to General 
 Chven Williams. The game was played for about an hour and 
 a half upon that occasion. There was nothing, so far as I know, 
 very remarkable about the play, and it did not get to very large 
 amounts, but in the course of an hour and a half of course a 
 great many coups are played. You have 208 cards in the four 
 packs, and a single coup cannot take more than nine cards and 
 may take fewer, so that you see there must be a large number 
 of coups before the four packs are exhausted. The result of the 
 evening's play was that Sir W T illiam Gordon-Gumming won, I 
 think, ^100, and some joke was made or something was said 
 about his winning upon that evening, and that he had been very 
 fortunate. I told you that Sir William Gordon-Gumming had 
 a paper in front of him, and that was a paper which he is in the 
 habit of keeping, and which players at baccarat will know as a 
 tableau. Persons who play these games, involving no skill and 
 nothing but absolute chance, very often have an idea of a system 
 they follow a particular system and make a rule as to the 
 money they will put upon the card. Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming, as a rule, acts upon a system and keeps a paper 
 upon which he puts " B " and " P," representing " Banker" and 
 " Player," and he puts down in pencil in dots when either the 
 banker or player wins, so that at the end of the evening, by 
 looking at his tableau, he is able to see how many times the 
 banker won and how many times the players have won. But 
 that is not the object of keeping the record. Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming is in the habit of doing this. He may put 
 down 2, or $, as the case may be, upon the first coup, and, 
 if he wins that, instead of withdrawing the stake which he had 
 put he receives that stake from the croupier and adds another 
 to it from his own counters, so that the second stake is three 
 times the first. If he stakes $ he would put a ^5 counter 
 down, and on his winning the croupier would give him a ,5 
 counter, and he would take from his own stake another 5 
 counter, and put it down, so that those three counters would be 
 his stake for the next coup. Of course, if you go on doubling 
 your stakes you must eventually lose the whole, and the only 
 possible way of winning is to increase your stake, and then 
 stop after a certain time. Players at these games of absolute 
 chance generally say if you succeed once you had better put a 
 little more on, and if you succeed a second time, or at the most 
 three times, then you must go back to the original stake and keep 
 the winnings. That was Sir \Villiam Gordon-Cumming's way
 
 I $6 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 of playing at the game. He kept his tableau, and upon the 
 following evening something was said to Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming in afamiliar and friendly way by his Royal Highness 
 as to his winning, and he said : "Why, sir, I could not help 
 winning with such a tableau as this," showing it to his Royal 
 Highness, which tableau showed that young Wilson, who upon 
 that occasion had been holding the cards for the side of the 
 table upon which Sir William Gordon-Gumming had been sit- 
 ting, had won no less than five coups in succession no donbt 
 winning money for himself, and no doubt also winning money 
 for Sir William Gordon-Gumming, who probably won a larger 
 sum than young Wilson himself. They played, as I said, for an 
 hour and a half, and at half-past twelve the party broke up. 
 The next day they met in the morning, and went to the races at 
 Doncaster in two saloon carriages. The Prince was in one of 
 the saloon carriages, and invited some of the party to join him, 
 and Sir William Gordon-Gumming himself was in the saloon 
 carriage with the Prince of Wales. They went to Doncaster 
 Races upon the Tuesday, and lunched together in the middle 
 of the day, and returned to Tranby Croft, there being no 
 suggestion of any sort or kind that anything whatever had 
 happened upon the Monday evening to call attention to the 
 play of any person of the party. Upon the Tuesday evening 
 they dined again, and about the same time in the evening again 
 played baccarat. At this time they had a different table. The 
 table the previous night had been complained of, and a table 
 had been arranged which was put in the billiard-room, between 
 the billiard table and the fireplace, and was covered with baize ; 
 and upon this table I believe some line of white chalk had been 
 marked round as the place where the players were to keep their 
 counters. It was not a regular baccarat table, and 1 think you will 
 hear that the line was very much nearer to the edge of the table 
 than is usual with baccarat tables, so that really it was impossible 
 for the counters to be kept within the line and the edge of the 
 table. Upon this occasion Sir William Gordon-Gumming was 
 playing again, but he was playing at the right-hand tableau of 
 his Royal Highness instead of the left. He was sitting again 
 next but one to General Owen Williams, the croupier, and 
 between them and General Owen Williams was sitting Lady 
 Coventry. She was playing, but had never seen the game 
 before, and I think Sir William Gordon-Gumming explained it 
 to her as far as was necessary, and she was playing for some 
 small 5-r. or los. stakes. Next to Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 on that evening sat Mrs. Lycett Green ; next to her, Arthur 
 Stanley Wilson ; next to him, Mr. Lycett Green ; and I am 
 not sure whether any one else sat between Mr. Lycett Green 
 and his Royal Highness. They played again in the same way
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 157 
 
 that evening, and there was a remarkable run of luck on the 
 part of Mr. Arthur Stanley Wilson, and Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming spoke to him in regard to it ; it was said he was a 
 novice, and that novices were supposed to be lucky at games of 
 cards, and Sir William Gordon-Gumming said to him that he 
 should follow him, he being a novice, and he turned out right, 
 because he won five coups in succession. That party again 
 came to an end after about an hour and a half's play ; and the 
 next morning, the morning of the loth was the principal day of 
 the Doncaster Races. The party again was to go to Doncaster 
 by train in the saloon carriages in the way I have mentioned. 
 On that morning of the Wednesday news came to Tranby 
 Croft about ten o'clock in the morning that Mrs. Wilson's 
 brother had died at Hull, and something was said about the 
 party breaking up. A message was sent by Mrs. Wilson 
 expressing the hope that the party would not break up, and 
 about eleven o'clock of that day Mrs. Wilson met Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming and pressed upon him not to leave the house 
 in consequence of the news which had come, but to go to the 
 races and let the visit come to an end in the ordinary way. It 
 is startling to know that at the time Mrs. Wilson urged Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming to stay at this house, and go to 
 the races and return to the house and not to let it interfere 
 with the visit, she and four other defendants had all been in 
 consultation with regard to Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 having cheated at cards, and that communications had taken 
 place between some of them as early as the evening of the 8th 
 of September, being the Monday, with regard to the accusation 
 to be made against Sir William Gordon-Gumming. Not a 
 syllable had been said about it ; no sign had been given in 
 their behaviour to Sir William Gordon-Gumming that there 
 was any sort of suspicion of this kind in their minds ; and on 
 the evening of Wednesday, the loth, about eight o'clock, when 
 he was going to dress for dinner, Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 was astounded by receiving a visit from Lord Coventry', who 
 told him that people who were in the house were making state- 
 ments with regard to his cheating at cards, and that it was a 
 very serious matter. Now, I am not going to attempt in detail 
 to give conversations which will have to be proved in evidence 
 before you, conversations in regard to which we have some 
 records, which I am glad cannot be challenged or altered now, 
 but Sir William Gordon-Gumming at once, and peremptorily 
 and absolutely denied the charge, and it cannot be suggested 
 that from beginning to end of the transactions that evening he 
 for a moment wavered from that peremptory and distinct denial 
 that there was any truth in it. He begged to be allowed to see 
 the Prince of Wales, but just then the dinner bell rang ; they
 
 158 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 dressed for dinner ; at dinner they all met in the usual way, 
 and on the same friendly terms. The evening was spent in 
 conversation and music ; and a little later, towards eleven 
 o'clock, Sir William Gordon-Gumming was allowed to see his 
 Royal Highness. His Royal Highness consented to see him in 
 the presence of Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams, 
 and an interview then took place, at which Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming denied most positively to his Royal Highness that 
 there was any sort of truth in the statement, and appealed to 
 him as to whether he could believe that he, who had been 
 allowed the honour of his acquaintance and friendship, could 
 have been guilty of such a disgraceful thing as was suggested 
 with regard to him. The interview canie to an end, and Sir 
 William Gordon- Gumming was told that he would be commu- 
 nicated with afterwards. Before any communication was made 
 to him, Mr. Lycett Green, and one or two other of the de- 
 fendants, saw the Prince of Wales, and his Royal Highness 
 did not see Sir William Gordon-Gumming again, but Lord 
 Coventry and General Owen Williams brought to Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming a document already prepared which they 
 called upon him to sign, and his signing of which they told him 
 was absolutely necessary in order to avoid a terrible social 
 scandal. I am asking now for the document which was, when 
 signed by many persons, left in the keeping of his Royal 
 Highness the Prince of Wales, and I am glad that it is not the 
 only document which I am able to refer to. Lord Coventry and 
 General Owen Williams naturally thought, when circumstances 
 of this kind occurred, that there should be left on record a full 
 and complete account of the whole matter as they knew it, and 
 they therefore drew up a precis or record of the matter, giving, 
 as they said, an accurate account of all the circumstances. 
 They signed that document, and handed it to the. custody of 
 his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in order that it might 
 be kept, with the undertaking which I have now in my hand. 
 Sir Francis Knollys was good enough just now to hand it to 
 Mr. Lewis. It does not come from the possession of the de- 
 fendants, but was in the possession of his Royal Highness the 
 Prince of Wales, whose equerry has given it to Mr, Lewis. I 
 propose to read at once the document signed by Lord Coventry 
 and General Owen Williams, which records the whole of this 
 matter as they knew it. 
 
 Sir CHARLES RUSSELL : Before my learned friend reads this, 
 let me say it is of course not evidence against the defendants. 
 They were no parties to this precis or statement to which my 
 learned friend has referred ; but, as I gather, my learned friend 
 intends to call those who did prepare it, namely, General Owen 
 Williams and Lord Coventry, I have no objection upon that
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 159 
 
 understanding to its being read. Unless my learned friend 
 intends to call General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry, 
 who are the signatories to that document, it of course cannot be 
 said to be in any way evidence against the defendants. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I do propose to call General 
 Owen Williams, but, inasmuch as I must leave somebody 
 whom I shall have an opportunity of cross-examining, I do not 
 propose to call Lord Coventry. 
 
 Sir CHARLES RUSSELL: I should not in a case of this kind, if 
 my learned friend does not feel at liberty to call Lord Coventry, 
 insist upon any such objection, although, at the same time, 
 as I have already said, it cannot be said in any way to be 
 evidence against the defendants. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I think General Owen Williams, 
 who is quite able to prove this, will be sufficient. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE: If General Owen Williams 
 signed it, and he is to be called, it is none the less 
 evidence. 
 
 Sir CHARLES RUSSELL : It would not then be evidence 
 against the defendants if General Owen Williams is called. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : But if they call General Owen 
 Williams they would probably put it in -his hands, and say: 
 " Did you write that ?" 
 
 Sir CHARLES RUSSELL : Even in that view it would not be 
 evidence against the defendants, who were no parties to it. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : No, not in itself. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I hope it will not be understood 
 that I am saying that the fact that there are certain statements 
 here, must be taken as absolutely conclusive evidence against 
 the defendants as regards what took place ; but it is, as you will 
 readily see at once, gentlemen, of cardinal importance in this 
 case ; for when two persons who, because of their experience 
 and position in society, were considered to be persons who 
 safely might be consulted with regard to a case of this kind 
 deliberately set down a full statement of the transaction as 
 they knew it, it is most important for the jury that has to 
 judge of what did take place, to see what their account was. I 
 will read to you the statement : 
 
 "For the Doncaster Race Meeting of 1890 the following 
 party were the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson at 
 Tranby Croft : His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Hon. 
 H. Tyrwhitt-Wilson, the Earl and Countess of Coventry, the 
 Earl of Craven, Lord Edward Somerset, Lady Brougham and 
 Vaux, Count Henry Liitzow, Captain the Hon. A. Somerset, 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming, Lieutenant-General and Mrs. 
 Owen Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Lycett Green, Mr. Christopher
 
 160 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 Sykes, Miss Naylor, Mr. Berkeley Levett, Mr. R. Sassoon, and 
 Mr. J. Wilson (the son of the house). 
 
 " On the evenings of the 8th and gth September the party 
 played at baccarat. 
 
 "After returning from the races on the loth inst., Mr. Lycett 
 Green (having previously taken counsel with his father on the 
 matter) made a statement to Lord Coventry to the effect that 
 his brother-in-law, Mr. J. Wilson, had told him on the evening 
 of the 8th that Sir William Gordon-Gumming systematically 
 placed a larger stake on the table, after the card had been 
 declared in his favour, than he had originally laid down, and 
 when the cards were against him he frequently withdrew a 
 portion of his stake, by these means defrauding the bank. 
 This conduct had also been noticed by Mrs. Arthur Wilson 
 who informed her husband of what she had seen Mrs. Lycett 
 Green and Mr. Levett having been also acquainted with the 
 facts. It was agreed that they should all carefully watch the 
 play on the following night, when Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming was again observed most distinctly to repeat the 
 same practices. Lord Coventry, on hearing this, consulted 
 General Owen Williams as to what steps should be taken in 
 the matter. Mr. Lycett Green repeated his statement to both 
 of them, in the presence of Lord Edward Somerset, Captain 
 Arthur Somerset, and Mr. J. Wilson, and added that those who 
 had watched were quite prepared to swear to the accuracy of 
 the report. The matter having thus been placed more or less 
 in the hands of Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams, 
 they decided that it was imperative upon them to inform the 
 Prince of Wales immediately of what had occurred, and after 
 mature deliberation they agreed to suggest to his Royal 
 Highness that, for the sake of all concerned, and for society 
 at large, it was most desirable that the circumstances should 
 not be allowed to transpire outside the immediate circle of 
 those already acquainted with the facts, but, as a condition of 
 silence, Sir William Gordon-Gumming must be made to sign 
 an undertaking never again to play cards for the rest of his life. 
 His Royal Highness, having been placed in possesion of all the 
 details of the case, and this suggestion being made to him, 
 agreed that such a solution was possible. Lord Coventry and 
 General Williams then went to Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 and informed him that he was accused of cheating at baccarat. 
 This charge he denied emphatically, and begged to be allowed 
 to see the Prince of Wales, who consented to see him, provided 
 Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams were present. 
 The interview took place. Sir William again denied the truth 
 of the accusation, but was told it was utterly useless to attempt 
 a denial in the face of the distinct evidence of so many totally
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 161 
 
 Unprejudiced persons, whose interest it was that no scandal 
 should have happened in the house. The Prince of Wales 
 afterwards saw Mr. Lycett Green, Mr. A. Wilson, Mr. Levett, 
 Mr. J. Wilson, Lord Edward Somerset, Captain Arthur 
 Somerset, and Mr. Sassoon, all of whom were acquainted with 
 the circumstances of the case, and listened to their verification 
 of the account which had been already given him. 
 
 " It was pointed out to these gentlemen that an ex-pose would 
 mean a horrible public scandal, and as it was most expedient 
 that this should, if possible, be avoided, they were asked whether 
 they would be willing to keep silence with regard to what had 
 taken place on condition that Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 signed an undertaking never again to play cards for the rest of 
 his life. To this they all agreed, and declared that they would 
 do their utmost to prevent the matter from transpiring. Lord 
 Coventry and General Williams then saw Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming, and explained that the only possible condition on 
 which silence could be maintained would be that he should sign 
 the under; aking before mentioned. At the same time they 
 clearly pointed out that his signature to this would be a distinct 
 admission of his guilt. Quite understanding, he signed the 
 document, which was afterwards signed also by the gentlemen 
 who were cognisant of the facts, and then given to the safe 
 keeping of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming left Tranby Croft early the following 
 morning. 
 
 "These circumstances were not known to Lady Coventry, 
 Lady Brougham, Mrs. Owen Williams, Miss Naylor, Lord 
 Craven, Count Henry Liitzow, nor Mr. Christopher Sykes, all 
 of whom were staying in the house at the time. 
 
 " The above is an accurate statement of all the facts of the 
 case. 
 
 " COVENTRY. 
 
 " OWEN WILLIAMS." 
 
 The last sentence of that, that it is an accurate statement of 
 all the facts of the case, can hardly perhaps be accepted now, 
 because it is only right I should tell you at once that the 
 defendants in their answers to interrogatories have denied the 
 agreement to watch Sir William Gordon-Gumming, which is 
 specifically stated in that memorandum to have been made ; 
 and, on the other hand, it is certainly the fact, and I shall prove 
 it by General Owen Williams, when in the box, that with regard 
 to the suggestion that signing this document was a confession 
 of guilt, that that suggestion was made by Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming, who objected and refused to sign the document at 
 first because, he said, it would be a confession of guilt ; and 
 
 L
 
 162 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 then they said it might be so, but there was no other mode ot 
 escaping a horrible public scandal. Gentlemen, I said I would 
 make no comment on the behaviour of persons who were 
 concerned in this case.; but it is an extraordinary thing that 
 two men of the knowledge and experience of General Owen 
 Williams and Lord Coventry, could have imagined that such 
 a thing as this could be kept secret, when it was known 
 to so many persons. The paper which was signed by his 
 Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and by other persons 
 whose names I will read to you, and signed by Sir \Villiam 
 Gordon-Gumming, is this : " In consideration of the promise 
 made by the gentlemen whose names are subscribed to preserve 
 silence with reference to an accusation which has been made 
 with regard to my conduct at baccarat on the nights of Monday 
 and Tuesday the 8th and gth September, 1890, at Tranby Croft, 
 I will on my part solemnly undertake never to play cards again 
 as long as I live." Signed by Sir William Gordon-dimming ; 
 and then come the signatures : Albert Edward, Coventry, 
 Owen Williams, Arthur Wilson, Arthur Somerset, Edward 
 Somerset, Lycett Green, A. Stanley Wilson, Berkeley Levett, 
 and R. D. Sassoon. 
 
 Now, how these gentlemen can have imagined that this 
 arrangement would prevent the matter being mentioned I 
 cannot conceive. This is signed by gentlemen only ; but there 
 were ladies cognisant of the matter, and it would be difficult for 
 them to keep the secret. Some of the men who knew the secret 
 were married, and it would be impossible for them to keep it ; 
 and in a very few weeks at all events after this document was 
 signed, there is no doubt it was becoming a matter of conversa- 
 tion that this incident had happened, and that Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming had been accused of cheating at cards. I do 
 not suggest that either of the defendants who signed this under- 
 taking had anything to do with repeating the story which they 
 had promised not to divulge. In the course of the case it may 
 be interesting to find out, and we may have to find out, through 
 whom it was this matter became a matter of public talk. But I 
 do not suggest that Mr. Lycett Green, or Mr. Arthur Wilson, or 
 Mr. Berkeley Levett, who signed 'this document, had anything to 
 do with making this matter public. Now, this document signed 
 by Sir William Gordon-dimming has been published in the 
 papers. The fact is known that he signed it, and it has led t<> 
 comments to which I referred when, at the beginning of my 
 opening, I was speaking about the possibility of your having, on 
 imperfect information, formed an opinion against Sir William 
 Gordon-dimming ; and it has been said that Sir William 
 Gordon-dimming would not have signed that document unless 
 he knew that he was guilty. I will point out to you, gentlemen,
 
 OPENING- SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF i6j 
 
 reasons for coming to a precisely opposite conclusion ; not only 
 that his signing that document involved no admission on his 
 part that he was guilty in this matter, but the fact that that 
 document was signed by his Royal Highness the Prince of 
 Wales, by General Owen Williams, and by Lord Coventry is a 
 conclusive proof that they did not believe that Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming was guilty of the offence charged against him. 
 What was it that was brought to bear on Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming in this matter ? Staying at that house in the circum- 
 stances I have mentioned, having gone there honoured, as I 
 told you, by the friendship of his Royal Highness the Prince of 
 Wales, there came to him General Owen Williams and Lord 
 Coventry with a prepared document, brought as an ultimatum 
 for him to sign, and they say to him, " Unless you sign it there 
 will to-morrow be a horrible scandal connected with the playing 
 of baccarat at Tranby Croft." I cannot but think that those 
 gentlemen exaggerated the terrors of the scandal which they 
 were seeking to prevent. They have not been able to keep it 
 private ; and now all that took place at Tranby Croft is matter 
 of public discussion, and there is nothing after all so very terrible 
 about it. Baccarat is a gambling game, and there are houses 
 v and great houses in England undoubtedly where it would not be 
 allowed ; but after all there is nothing wrong in playing it under 
 these circumstances and at this time ; and if English gentlemen, 
 whatever position they may hold in society, choose to amuse 
 themselves in this fashion, I do not know that there is any 
 reason for talking about a terrible society scandal a terrible 
 public scandal because of playing games of cards like baccarat. 
 As to the accusation against Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 
 the one mistake that Sir William Gordon-Cumming made in 
 this case, which he most deeply regrets, is that he allowed 
 himself to be persuaded by the advice of old friends like 
 Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams, for with General 
 Owen Williams he had been for twenty years and has been 
 since this occurrence upon terms of personal friendship the 
 mistake was that he took the advice of those men whom 
 he thought his friends and consented to make, what was 
 not so great a sacrifice perhaps, a sacrifice of playing cards in 
 the future, in the hope that he might avoid that scandal ,which 
 they seemed so to dread, a scandal which, as he supposed, 
 and as was represented to him, might be of most unhappy 
 consequences to society at large. But, gentlemen, while he 
 signed that, as I told you, he from beginning to end asserted his 
 innocence of the charge ; and I daresay it will occur to you if 
 Sir William Gordon-Cumming had been thinking more of 
 himself, and less of those who honoured him with friendship ; if 
 he had been the common cheat which he must have been, if in
 
 i^4 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 these circumstances, and in that company, he tried to get motley 
 from his friends by dishonest means, he never would have 
 signed a document like that. lie, if a guilty man, would have 
 been prepared to meet the accusation whenever it came and 
 face it out to the end ; and the fact that Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming signed that, regrettable as it is from the inferences 
 which have already been drawn from that fact since it has been 
 published, is, I submit to you, no sort of evidence that 
 he admitted himself, or knew himself, to be guilty of this 
 offence. 
 
 But the importance of this document is to my mind very much 
 greater than this. Did his Royal Highness the Prince of 
 Wales and General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry, believe, 
 when that document was' signed, that Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming had cheated at cards at Tranby Croft? It is a 
 question of vital interest. I do not say after what has taken 
 place I am inclined to over-estimate the capacity for a judicial 
 investigation of evidence which is possessed by Lord Coventry 
 and General Owen Williams ; but, at all events, they had seen 
 the persons who were making this accusation, and they knew 
 the circumstances as far as those persons could relate them, and 
 they signed their names to this document. It is important 
 to ask : Did they believe that Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 was guilty, or did they think, as they say, that the only way of 
 avoiding a great public and social scandal was to get him to 
 sign this, and in consideration of a promise of not playing cards 
 in future on the one side to get the promise of secrecy on the 
 other? If his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and General 
 Owen Williams and Lord Coventry had then believed Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming to be guilty they could not have 
 allowed that document to be signed. I do not say that there 
 has not been in any circumstances of this case some breach of 
 the regulations of the army. His Royal Highness is a Field- 
 Marshal in the army, and is familiar with the rule that, when 
 an officer's conduct is impugned, it is his duty at once to report 
 the imputation made upon him to his commanding officer, and 
 to demand, for his own reputation's sake and the credit of the 
 army, whose credit is involved in his own, that there should be 
 an investigation at once. I do not say in any view of this case 
 that there has not been a technical breach of that rule ; but 
 supposing it to be believed that this was a mistaken accusation, 
 and Sir William Gordon-Gumming had not been shown to be 
 guilty, then I think no one could complain that His Royal 
 Highness the Prince of Wales and General Owen Williams had 
 thought it unnecessary that an accusation so made should be 
 mentioned to the commanding officer. But if his Royal High- 
 ness and General Owen Williams did then believe that Sir
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 16$ 
 
 William Gordon-Gumming had been caught at Tranby Croft 
 cheating at cards, it was impossible for them to make an 
 agreement of silence with regard to such an act. It would 
 have been allowing Sir William Gordon-Gumming, and this 
 with the consent and sanction of a Field-Marshal of the army, 
 to go back to his brother officers, to occupy his rank, to perform 
 his duties as an officer and a gentleman in the British army, 
 when it was known, and known to a Field-Marshal of the army, 
 that he had been guilty of conduct which if mentioned to his 
 commanding officer would result in an inquiry and in his 
 ignominious expulsion from the service. But if his Royal 
 Highness the Prince of Wales and General Owen Williams 
 were in this way affected by matters of duty with regard to the 
 army, what about Lord Coventry? Lord Coventry is not a 
 soldier, and is not bound by the regulations of the army to 
 which I have referred, but he is bound by other regulations, the 
 regulations and rules of honour, as strong and as stiict as 
 those which affect the army. I do not speak of the clubs to 
 which his Royal Highness belongs, for he belongs to many ; 
 but Lord Coventry is a member of three clubs to which Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming belongs. He belongs to the Carlton, 
 to the Turf, and to the Marlborough Clubs ; and General Owen 
 Williams belongs to the Turf and Marlborough Clubs and 
 perhaps to another to which Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 belongs. I believe my learned friend (Sir Charles Russell) 
 belongs to the Turf Club ; I belong to the Carlton ; and if it 
 were true that Lord Coventry knew Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming had been guilty of cheating at cards at Tranby Croft 
 and had been detected and exposed in cheating at cards, Lord 
 Coventry would have no right to leave that man for another 
 clay a member of the clubs to which Lord Coventry himself 
 goes, and in which he meets on equal terms of honour the other 
 members of those clubs. It is impossible to conceive that 
 these three gentlemen, his Royal Highness the Prince of 
 Wales, General Owen Williams, and Lord Coventry, at the 
 time that document was signed, believed that Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming was guilty. If they did not believe him to 
 be guilty, why did they allow him to sign it ? Because, I fear, 
 there was pressing upon their minds, and urged by them in the 
 strongest terms terms almost of menace against Sir W 7 illiam 
 Gordon-Gumming the belief that the mere mention of the fact 
 that at the Wilsons', at Tranby Croft, the Prince of Wales had 
 been banker at a baccarat table would be of itself such a social 
 scandal that any arrangement was necessary in order to 
 prevent its coming out. They were mistaken in that. There 
 is nothing in the whole course of this case which carries any 
 imputation upon the Prince of Wales, or those who were at
 
 166 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 Tranby Croft with him at the time; but that is the meaning, 
 and the only meaning, of their forcing Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming to sign this document ; and the very fact that they did 
 so is the completest proof that they themselves did not then believe 
 he had been detected and guilty of the offence. Gentlemen, 
 they did not believe it, but the defendants undoubtedly did. 
 There was no ground for suggesting, and Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming does not suggest through me he has said so 
 already that there was any wilful untruth or unfairness in the 
 conduct of the defendants. That they believed they had seen 
 him do what they allege in their answers to interrogatories, he 
 has no doubt and I have no doubt ; but the question for you 
 is this is Sir William Gordon-Gumming unworthy of the 
 career he has led and the friendships he has enjoyed, or are 
 these young people mistaken ? Their statement now is not 
 that which Lord Coventry arid General Owen Williams 
 recorded. In the paper which I have read to you, signed by 
 those two gentlemen, it is stated that they were informed by 
 Mr. Lycett Green, that Sir William Gordon-Gumming had been 
 seen repeatedly to add money to his stake when the cards had 
 been declared in his favour, and to take away part of the stake 
 when the decision was against him. They have now made 
 their statement on oath in answer to interrogatories, that they 
 never saw him they do not allege that they ever saw him 
 withdraw part of the stake when the cards were against him. 
 General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry, who were scared 
 by this accusation into dealing unwisely and ungenerously, as I 
 cannot help thinking, with their old friend and comrade Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming, were acting in the belief that 
 an accusation was made which it now turns out was never 
 made at all, and an accusation more difficult to meet and 
 explain than, the one actually made. If you find these persons 
 come and say, as they do in their answers to interrogatories, 
 that they did see Sir William Gordon-Cumming adding money 
 to the stake already upon the table after the cards were 
 declared, and if you hear from my lips that I impute nothing 
 to them in the way of untruth or unveracity in regard to this 
 matter, you will ask yourselves directly how can the mistake 
 have arisen ? It is a mistake that could easily have arisen, and 
 if they had known the game better, or anything about it, or 
 known the way in which Sir William Gordon-Cumming was 
 playing, they would have seen that the very thing, which it was 
 perfectly easy to see the very thing which they allege to be a 
 proof of his guilt was an ordinary procedure in playing the 
 game. There is a most extraordinary statement in their 
 answers to interrogatories. They say that the stake was 
 changed after the cards were declared in his favour. Now,
 
 OPENING SPEECH FOR THE PLAINTIFF 167 
 
 observe, if the man were intending to cheat at this or any game 
 in the way here suggested, he would, on seeing his cards, know 
 whether he had good cards or not, and might, if he were dis- 
 honestly inclined, increase his stake or diminish it, according to 
 his inspection of the cards, but he would do that before the 
 attention of everybody in the place, and especially that of the 
 croupier who had to pay the money, was called to the amount 
 of the stake upon the table. The moment the cards are 
 declared at baccarat, all look round. The croupier and banker 
 look round, and the croupier has the duty of taking the stake or 
 not, and the moment it is declared he looks round to see how 
 much the banker is going to win or lose on one side or the 
 other, and it is impossible to suppose that a dishonest man 
 would wait until the very moment at which the croupier's 
 attention would be fixed upon the stake, in order to meddle 
 with the stake that had been put upon the table. But the man 
 who was playing as Sir William Gordon- Gumming played, that 
 is to say, when he won the coup, not taking back the ^5 
 counter that. lay upon the table, but meaning to play the next 
 coup with another ^5 counter of his own and the $ counter 
 which he would get from the croupier, he would, in the ordinary 
 course, and natural and honest course of things, be seen by 
 somebody to put down another ^5 counter upon the one lying 
 there, and if he were playing coup after coup in that way, it is 
 in that way perfectly simple, and a thing which would have ex- 
 plained itself to any one familiar with playing coup after coup at 
 baccarat. It is perfectly possible that they did see Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming, after the cards were declared,' put another 
 counter on the table, but it was not that he should be paid by 
 the croupier the amount of the two, nor is there in their affi- 
 davits the smallest suggestion that they ever saw General Owen 
 Williams, the croupier, pay to Sir William Gordon-CumminL; 
 more than they had noticed that he staked in the first instance. 
 It was put there in order that the one to be handed over to him 
 by the croupier might be added to the other two. I have said, 
 gentlemen, we do not doubt at all that these defendants 
 honestly believed in the accusation, terrible as it was, that they 
 were making, and I have shown you that His Royal Highness 
 the Prince of Wales and Lord Coventry and General Owen 
 Williams could not have believed it. Now that this matter is 
 in court, now that Sir William Gordon-Gumming is here, and 
 going into the witness-box to give his absolute denial on his 
 oath that any sort of cheating took place, it will become a ques- 
 tion for the defendants whether they will venture in this Court 
 to ask you, on the authority of their untrained observation and 
 with all these possibilities of mistake, to say that what they 
 saw was not only the putting down of this fresh stake, but
 
 1 68 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 was the dishonest putting down of this stake and the receipt 
 of a larger sum in consequence of it. I should have doubted 
 very much whether they would have ventured into court to 
 ask you to say that. If they do come into court and insist upon 
 giving that statement, you will listen to their evidence and cross- 
 examination, and you, I hope, will know how to deal with it, if 
 they force that issue upon you and upon us. It is, as I have 
 told you, the gravest issue that a soldier could have to face. I 
 am here to defend that soldier's honour. I am here to defend 
 it by his evidence, and by such careful examination of the cir- 
 cumstances which are alleged against him as I hope and believe 
 will satisfy you that the accusation was one not founded upon 
 fact ; honestly made perhaps, but if so in honest mistake that 
 it is an accusation which when it is brought here and examined 
 before you cannot stand and cannot be upheld against Sir 
 William Gordon -Cumming. The issues are heavy ones for 
 him. If the accusation be upheld against him, if you find it to 
 be proved, there ends in this court that career of honour and of 
 public service which his thousand friends hoped would be con- 
 tinued for many splendid years to come. He must go away, 
 degraded from the profession to which he belongs, exiled from 
 the friendship and companionship of those he has known as 
 friends, ind in another land, and perhaps under another name, 
 seek some career, which may dim, but cannot efface, the 
 memory of these transactions. I do not ask you on his behalf 
 for sympathy or even pity. If he is guilty of this offence, he 
 deserves no sympathy ; if he is innocent, the sympathy will 
 come to console him for the agonies of the time that has gone 
 by before he was able to meet this accusation in court. I do 
 not ask for pity. Pity indeed, if he were guilty of this, all of us 
 would feel for the man, who, after such a career, passed into 
 darkness, and of whose past life his friends would never speak, 
 of whom they would think only with a sigh. But that pity 
 would follow, not prevent, the punishment. I hope for a very 
 different result from that. From the moment when he knew 
 that this charge was being mentioned about from lip to lip, he 
 claimed to be tried before the best and highest tribunal that 
 this country can give ; no bastard imitation tribunal of justice, 
 where laymen pretend to be judges, with assessors sitting to 
 decide upon a question of this sort, but before the great Justiciar 
 of England, the man who inherits and sustains the proudest 
 traditions of the English Bench, and before that special jury, 
 which, after all, is the best tribunal for the ascertainment and 
 judgment of facts that any one has ever been able to invent. 
 Gentlemen, the issue is in your hands. You will not be moved 
 from your duty of impartial judgment by appeals on one side 
 or the other ; but I do trust that Sir William Gordon-Gumming
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 169 
 
 may go away from this court, when your verdict is given, back 
 to the life of honour and repute that he has led hitherto among 
 his fellows, that he may still wear in your service, and in his 
 country's service, a sword that has never been stained but with 
 the blood of his country's foes, and that he, as he has risked 
 his life for you and yours in the times gone by, may, in his 
 hour of peril here, find protection in your instincts of justice. 
 
 SIXTH DAY. 
 
 The Solicitor-General 's Reply on behalf 
 of the Plaintiff. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : May it please your lordship, 
 gentlemen of the jury, A week ago to-day I spoke of the honour 
 and the responsibility given to my learned friend and myself 
 when representing Sir William Gordon-Gumming in this case. 
 I am still as grateful for the honour ; responsibility has deepened 
 as the days have gone on ; and it is with a sense of personal 
 responsibility in dealing with the gravest of issues that I am 
 going to ask you now to give me your sustained and your 
 careful attention, while, dismissing as I shall (and my recorded 
 speech shall bear me witness of it hereafter) every topic 
 which could be called a topic of prejudice alone, I take you 
 through the facts of this case, and the evidence you have heard, 
 and from the calmest judgment you ever were able to bring to 
 bear upon the most serious issue on which it was your duty to 
 pronounce, I shall ask a verdict for Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 in this case. 
 
 Gentlemen, the responsibility is a grave one. I am spoken 
 of in this court by an official title, which it is the great honour 
 of my life to have been allowed to bear, but in this case I am 
 not Solicitor-General, I am a private English barrister, bound 
 by the obligation of the robe he wears to disregard private 
 friendships, political associations, personal interests, in the 
 discharge of his duty towards his client. No duty could have 
 been more painful to me than to have to cross-examine and to 
 have now to comment upon the conduct of one of the witnesses 
 in this case, for whom I have always entertained and do enter- 
 tain the greatest regard and respect ; but those comments must 
 be made ; and my responsibility goes further, and here, in the 
 Royal Courts, where justice is administered by the judges of the 
 Queen, I shall speak freely even of the most illustrious of my fellow 
 subjects. It is not I who have sought the conflict in this case. My 
 learnedfriend, Sir Charles Russell, hasagainandagain commented
 
 170 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 on the difference of tone that has come to me in conducting this 
 case from that which I used when I made my speech last Mon- 
 day. Gentlemen, I confess I am not sorry for it. Any one who 
 will read with care what I said last Monday will acknowledge 
 that at. that time, and having regard to what might be the course 
 of the casef 1 AVES justified and even bound to be as moderate as 
 I was in observations on those who were parties to the case. I 
 was mistaken in my estimate of the Wilson family. I thought 
 that when that Scotch gentleman and soldier had, in the wit- 
 ness-box upon his oath before you said that on neither of those 
 nights had he been guilty of any act of cheating at cards> pos- 
 sibly they might feel it their duty to say, "Against such a denial 
 as that, we do not dare to place our recollections, our impres- 
 sions, never then recorded, now recalled in consultation between 
 us for the purpose of this case, we do not venture to put those 
 impressions and recollections, when so grave an issue is before 
 the jury as the ruin of that man's life and reputation." I said 
 then, and I think now, that they might have taken a perfectly 
 honourable and a fair course in saying that, having heard that 
 evidence, they distrusted their own untrained observation, and 
 distrusted their own unaided recollection, unaided except by 
 consultation with the other members of the family. It was not 
 alone Sir William Gordon-Gumming who gave that denial in 
 this court. Witnesses in the ordinary sense he could not call, 
 but he did call twenty-three. Every year of that honourable 
 life that he has passed holding her Majesty's commission and 
 wearing her Majesty's uniform, associating with the most illus- 
 trious, the most honourable men in the land, received by them 
 upon terms of equal friendship, and never doing an act which 
 diminished in the slightest degree the regard and esteem they 
 felt for him every one of those twenty-three years is a witness 
 for Sir William Gordon-Gumming against this family accusation. 
 And believing that, knowing that believing, as I did, that when 
 his evidence faad been given it might have been possible that 
 the defendants would have shrunk from this issue, and have- 
 accepted his denial, I deliberately abstained from saying any 
 word whatever about either the Wilson family, or about General 
 Owen Williams and Lord Coventry, or about his Royal High- 
 ness the Prince of Wales, that could afterwards be quoted to 
 distress or humiliate any one. Gentlemen, my expectation was 
 disappointed. I am not sorry that I made that speech. It has 
 given my learned friend the opportunity of taunting me with a 
 change of tone. To that I am indifferent. Those who read 
 that speech if any do hereafter, will consider the circum- 
 stances in which it was made, and I think will say that I 
 was justified in the hope that I entertained, and that, having 
 that hope, I was right in leaving things unsaid which would be
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 171 
 
 injurious to the character of others. But, gentlemen, the change 
 has been forced upon me. In that very speech I think you will 
 remember that I said that there might have to be comments 
 made upon the conduct of the defendants before the case was 
 closed, but if those comments had to be made they could be 
 made at a later time. The defendants insist upon having them, 
 and I shall not hesitate to say what I have to say about any and 
 all of the persons who have been called before the Court in this 
 case. They insist upon having them made, not only by main- 
 taining these charges against Sir William Gordon-Gumming in 
 the face of his denial on oath, but by instructing their counsel 
 to make the accusations against Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 worse, if possible, by denouncing him as a man who, when he 
 had signed the document which admitted his guilt of cheating, 
 tried to slip out of the army with his half-pay in order to avoid 
 the opportunity of inquiry and exposure ; an accusation for which, 
 as I will show you, there is not one fragment of support in the 
 evidence before you, and an accusation, as I shall show you, 
 which Sir William Gordon-Gumming does not in the least 
 deserve. It is not my fault that the case is fought in this way ; 
 but, if my learned friend has thought fit to take that course, I 
 doubt not under instructions, then my simple duty to Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming binds me to deal with the case in a very 
 different fashion from the way in which I dealt with it a 
 week ago. Gentlemen, my learned friend, in the beginning of 
 the speech to which you have just listened, correctly defined 
 what the question was that you will have to deal with in this 
 case. He said the real question is whether it is established by 
 evidence satisfactory to your minds and consciences, that upon 
 the nights of September the 8th and Qth in last year, Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming cheated at cards. Gentlemen, that is the 
 question, that issue is upon the defendants. If I ever chose 
 to conduct a case of this kind in a way which some of my 
 learned friends think to be wise in tactics and justifiable, I 
 might have had those witnesses in the box in the first instance 
 before Sir William Gordon-Gumming faced you. I might have 
 insisted, when I proved that they had made the statement, upon 
 their coming into the box, that I might know all they were going 
 to say before I called Sir William Gordon-Gumming to answer. 
 Gentlemen, that is not the way in which I ever conducted a 
 case, or ever will conduct a case of this kind. In my 
 judgment, if a man comes into Court and makes a claim to 
 defend his honour from the aspersion that has been thrown 
 upon it, that man's place is the witness-box, and the witness- 
 box the first moment he can go into it, there to meet any 
 suggestion or accusation that may be raised against him, and 
 there by prompt conduct, the prompt denial of a gentleman, to
 
 172 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 clear himself from the accusation made against him. It is 
 Sir William Gordon-Cumming's bitterest pain to-day that 
 while he came to jthe witness-box at the beginning of the 
 case, exposing himself to that which my learned friend rightly 
 calls and often illustrates, the severe fire of cross-examination 
 it is his bitterest pain to think that, while he came at 
 the beginning of this case promptly into the witness-box to 
 meet his accusers, he is liable to be told, as he has been 
 told over and over again in words which must have wrung a 
 man's heart to listen to, that he is condemned already, because 
 he has signed a paper that two friends suggested and urged 
 him to put his name to. The question is, is this accusation 
 proved ? Presently, and I know you will forgive me if you 
 think at any moment I am dealing too slowly with this matter 
 or going too much into detail, but presently I will address 
 myself as if this were a commercial question, involving no 
 larger issue than the transfer of a ^10 note from one side to the 
 other. I will address myself to the consideration of the 
 evidence which has been given before you, and will examine it 
 in detail. But now I want you to remember that the first 
 question is : Have the defendants proved this charge against 
 Sir William Gordon-Cumming ? Your answer to that, which I 
 hope and trust will be in Sir William Gordon-Cumming's 
 favour, would involve another question upon which it is difficult 
 for me to say a single word, but with regard to which I should 
 possibly be misunderstood if I left it absolutely unmentioned. 
 If the defendants have made this charge and the charge is not 
 true, then they are liable to a verdict against them, and they 
 are liable to some damages at the suit of Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming. When damages have to be dealt with, the conduct 
 of the accuser, the financial position of the accuser or the 
 claimant, all have to be considered. Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming's means would prevent his wanting any of the 
 Wilsons' money even if he could condescend to accept it, for 
 his own use, and so, although wealthy indeed they are, I should 
 not ask you to measure damages by reference to their wealth, 
 or to the painful gravity of the accusation that they made, but I 
 should ask you to give such amount in damages to Sir William 
 Gordon-Cumming as would be sufficient to show that you 
 absolutely disbelieved the charge against him, and that you 
 desired to record some evidence of that in your verdict. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the case against Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming is put in two ways. It is put first that the evidence 
 against him is in itself conclusive, and my learned friend three 
 times over on Friday used a strong epithet rhetorically strong 
 when he said there was "damning evidence" against Sir 
 William Gordon-Cumming. The second point put against him
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 173 
 
 is that his other friends, the Prince of Wales, General Owen 
 Williams, and Lord Coventry all believed him to be guilty, and 
 my learned friend has with ingenuity, and with undoubted 
 power, put before you this morning that of these nine persons 
 eight are agreed as to the guilt of the ninth. I said, and I 
 honestly said at the beginning of this case, that I could not 
 imagine that the Prince of Wales and General Owen Williams 
 and Lord Coventry believed Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 guilty of that which was charged against him. I cannot say 
 that now ; for they have been in the witness-box, and General 
 Owen Williams and Lord Coventry have distinctly said that 
 they believe him guilty. As to His Royal Highness, he gave 
 an answer to the terms of which I shall have to refer when I 
 am dealing with another part of the case. I am obliged to 
 give up the belief that General Owen Williams and Lord 
 Coventry did not believe him guilty, but were desirous only to 
 avoid a scandal. What consequences may follow from that 
 statement on their part I do not know consequences outside 
 the court. The comments that I made as to the impossibility 
 of a man of honour who believes another to have been cheating 
 at cards, allowing him to continue in the service of the Crown, 
 and to continue a member of clubs at which they both were 
 meeting other friends from day to day, and joining in the 
 ordinary and pleasant fellowship of social life of those com- 
 ments which I made on them I cannot retract one syllable. 
 They were spoken earnestly and in good faith ; there they must 
 remain, although Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams 
 have said that they did believe it. But there is one point to 
 which I do at once wish to refer. It is impossible not to see 
 that, with regard to the signing of that document which was 
 procured in order to protect Mr. Lycett Green from assault or 
 an action at law at the suit of Sir William Gordon-Gumming, it 
 is impossible not to see that the suggestion of arranging the 
 whole case by the signature of a document like that did not 
 come from His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, but came 
 from two men older than himself, his trusted friends and 
 counsellors, who brought to him for his adoption the sugges- 
 tion which he, as I venture to think, unwisely accepted. But a 
 word has been said by my learned friend Sir Charles Russell in 
 the course of the last few minutes, of which I must take notice ; 
 he has referred to the signing of this document as being in 
 itself, apart from the question of the guilt or innocence of Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming, an offence against military law so 
 grave that it cannot be pardoned. I do not quite understand 
 if that means that even supposing your verdict goes in favour of 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming the military authorities will con- 
 tinue the inquiry which was suspended because this action was
 
 i? 4 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 brought, and that they will, even if your verdict declares him to 
 be an innocent man, go on to punish him by removal from the 
 Army List because he signed that document. That is the only 
 meaning I can attach to the words of my learned friend's 
 observation on the matter ; but I am bound to add this, that 
 suggestion having been made before you, if you find that Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming was not guilty of that which is 
 charged against him, and if, as I trust he may, he goes from 
 this court justified by your verdict, I am bound to say that I 
 think it is impossible, and I hope that these words of mine 
 spoken here will help to make it impossible, that Sir William 
 Gordon-Cumming's name should be removed from the Army 
 List, and that the names of Field- Marshal the Prince of Wales, 
 and of Major-General Owen Williams should be allowed to 
 remain there. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I desire to deal separately with these 
 matters, the evidence, the inference to be drawn from the belief 
 of General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry, and also with 
 the conduct of Sir William Gordon-Gumming. But I would 
 first make an observation or two to you with regard to the 
 character and value of the evidence which is before you in this 
 case. Gentlemen, you are asked to investigate events which 
 took place on the evenings of the 8th and gth and loth 
 September in last year, 1.890, and you are asked to deal 
 with those events upon the evidence of eight witnesses who 
 have been mentioned, five of whom made no record whatever 
 of what took place upon that occasion until after the 27th of 
 January in this year, when a solicitor's letter was written to tell 
 them that an action was about to be brought. Let me just ask 
 you to consider for yourselves and answer to yourselves this 
 question I am content to put it quite frankly to you and take 
 your judgment at once upon the answer if you were going to 
 investigate circumstances which took place six or. nine months 
 ago, would not the first question you asked be : Did any one 
 make a record of the transaction ? and if you found that the 
 persons who felt most deeply their responsibility in the matter 
 had between them set down on paper what they declared was 
 an accurate record of all the circumstances of the case, would 
 you not accept that record? Gentlemen, that question is of 
 vital importance in this case. My learned friend, Sir Charles 
 Russell, has felt it so. and on Friday devoted a considerable 
 portion of his address to you to what he said was an irrelevant 
 topic. To my astonishment Sir Charles Russell on Friday said 
 that he was dealing with irrelevant topics when he considered 
 the accuracy or inaccuracy of the record which had been kept 
 of these matters ; and he went on to say that his witnesses had 
 proved that those statements contained in that record were in-
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 175 
 
 accurate statements. Is it not a most curious thing that after 
 these people saw that record, knew the circumstances in. which 
 it had been made, knew the persons by whom it had been 
 vouched, knew the purpose for which it had been preserved and 
 the way in which it had been preserved, that after seeing that 
 they are so determined to force this matter into court, so 
 vindictive in their action towards Sir William Gordon-Cummin^, 
 that their counsel is instructed to say that the very men they 
 appealed to themselves on the night of the loth of September 
 have altogether forgotten, nay, had in the following week for- 
 gotten, the statements which were made to them on that 
 occasion ? Now, gentlemen, I ask you to consider in what 
 circumstances did the incidents take place, by whom and when 
 was the record made, and what do the people who made that 
 record now say with regard to it? The nights on which these 
 circumstances took place, were the 8th and the 9th and the 
 loth of September, and you have to deal with the evidence as 
 best you can that is given before you with regard to those 
 occasions. My learned friend has been very anxious that I should 
 denounce the. Wilson family as having committed perjury in 
 this court. He invites me to treat them as having committed 
 perjury. He says that if you find a verdict for Sir William Gordon- 
 (Jumming, you must find that the)' are wilful calumniators. It is 
 a very handsome invitation, but I decline it. It is not my case 
 to you ; it was not at the beginning, it is not now, that these 
 people invented for the purpose of injuring Sir William Cordon- 
 Gumming, the story they have told. I do not doubt that on the 
 loth September they thought that they had seenon previous even- 
 ings cheating on the part of Sir William Gordon-Gumming ; but 
 when I come to deal in detail with the accounts of those two even- 
 ings, I shall show you that what my learned friend calls cumulative 
 testimony is not cumulative at all. With the exception, as I 
 make it out and as my friend admitted might be the case, of 
 one incident, an incident easily explained, and to which atten- 
 tion was called at the time, there are no two persons who 
 allege that they saw any one of the acts complained of, and the 
 different things they say they did see, things incredible. , as 
 alleged to be done at such a time, at such a place, by a man 'of 
 such a character, those things are spoken of only by the people 
 who went and took their seats at the ..table expecting to see 
 what they now tell you they saw. Gentlemen, that matter 
 must be dealt with in detail, but I ask you to consider what \\ ;IM 
 the character of the circumstances at Tranby Groft on these 
 three evenings. I asked a question about the hospitality, the 
 large and generous hospitality of Tranby Croft, and my learned 
 friend has asked, did I mean to suggest that the people there 
 were drunk, and says he likes to have things put straight-
 
 176 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 forwardly and in plain language. I do not think I have a repu- 
 tation for shrinking from plain language if plain language is 
 wanted, but I said exactly what I meant. The circumstances 
 of Tranby Croft on the evening of the Tuesday, and the Wed- 
 nesday especially, were circumstances which involved no dis- 
 credit, no imputation of intoxication upon the guests who were 
 there, or the family who were there, but they were circum- 
 stances which would make you very careful before you accepted 
 the random recollections of inexperienced and youthful persons, 
 and interested persons, as to what took place. One is not 
 always in quite so judicial and calm a frame of mind as you 
 are in to-day, and I should think that Tranby Croft, after a 
 day at Doncaster, the first day when the Prince's horse had 
 won the horse of the guest of the house had won ; the next 
 day with the excitement of the Leger, when a late dinner was 
 followed by card- playing, and drinking and smoking were going 
 on at the card-table without the smallest suggestion that any 
 one of these persons had disgraced himself by the way in which 
 he had indulged in the hospitality of Tranby Croft it is quite 
 fair to suggest to you, and I think you will understand the sug- 
 gestion, that those were not the circumstances in which their 
 observation would be very keen, in which their judgment would 
 be very good, or of which their recollection was likely to be 
 very exact. If, in those circumstances, you find it is only the 
 persons who come prepared to see a thing who say afterwards 
 that they saw it, I think you will admit that the observation 
 about the hospitalities of Tranby Croft is a justified one. But, 
 gentlemen, if it is important on the Tuesday when these people 
 were playing baccarat, it is still more important having refer- 
 ence to the record which was made the following week. Now 
 by whom was the record made? For what purpose was it 
 made? How was it preserved? It was made under the 
 authority, with the cognisance and with the endorsements of 
 the three persons who, if there are any persons who can be 
 trusted as to the proceedings at Tranby Croft on the night of 
 the loth, are undoubtedly the persons whose recollection you 
 may trust. Lord Coventry, and General Owen Williams, and 
 his Royal Highness, would certainly be less excited than the 
 young people of the family, who had been enjoying themselves 
 at the Doncaster Races on the Leger day, with the pleasant 
 matter floating in their minds that there had been cheating at 
 baccarat at their house last night, and that there probably will 
 be to-night, and we shall find it out. The three men whose 
 evidence, even if they had no record to appeal to, as to the 
 incidents of that night, would be the evidence by which, as I 
 submit, you could be most safely guided, would be the Prince 
 of Wales, General Owen Williams, and Lord Coventry, of those
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 177 
 
 who are called before us. If you were depending upon recol- 
 lection against recollection now, and you asked yourselves who 
 was the more likely to be correct as to what took place at Tranby 
 Croft on the 8th of September, Lord Coventry or Mr. Lycett 
 Green, is there one of you would hesitate to say that where 
 memory differed you would accept Lord Coventry's word ? I 
 would say the same with regard to General Owen Williams ; I 
 would sav the same with regard to his Royal Highness ; and 
 here you have, as the cardinal fact of the case, one which my 
 learned friend has tried to get over, but I venture to suggest 
 has tried in vain to get over, that the three persons who, if they 
 were speaking now from their recollection on oral evidence, you 
 would accept as the witnesses of accuracy and truth against the 
 younger people who have been called on the other side you 
 have not only their evidence, but you have the record which 
 they made within a week after. Now, why was this record 
 made ? His Royal Highness gave his account of that record 
 in answer to the few questions which I put to him. I said : 
 
 " Q. Did your Royal Highness read that record IA. I 
 read it. It was sent to me first by General Williams ; then I 
 had it sent back so that Lord Coventry should see it, so that 
 both should agree, and it was then returned signed by Lord 
 Coventry. 
 
 " Q. Your Royal Highness read it ? A. I read it. 
 
 " Q, And did it agree with your own recollection, sir, of what 
 had been stated to you on the loth of September? A. It did. 
 
 " Q. I believe, sir, that you sealed up the two documents, 
 put them in a packet, and they remained in your possession 
 unseen by anybody until this litigation arose? A. I sent them 
 to my private secretary, Sir Francis Knolh s, under seal, he not 
 knowing what their contents were, telling him to put them in a 
 safe place. 
 
 " Q. And they were kept in a safe place at Marlborough 
 House? A. At Marlborough House. 
 
 " Q. Until they were asked for for the purposes of this case ? 
 A. Precisely." 
 
 That is his Royal Highness's account, and his Royal High- 
 ness was a little more careful as to keeping the secret of this 
 matter than Lord Coventry was, for he sent his document under 
 seal to Marlborough House to be kept by the secretary, who 
 was ignorant of its contents, while Lord Coventry writes out 
 the whole account of the matter with all the details in an 
 eighteenpenny diary, which he was using from day to day for 
 three months afterwards. That is the account which the Prince 
 of Wales gave. 
 
 Now let me tell you what General Owen Williams says. I am 
 cross-examining. 
 
 M
 
 I 7 8 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 " Q. The document which is before my lord is, I understand, 
 in your handwriting, and was prepared by you, and sent to. his 
 Royal Highness as a record of the transactions a few days after 
 it had taken place ? A. That is so. 
 
 " Q. And while the matter was quite fresh in your memory? 
 A. Yes. 
 
 " Q. And the Prince has told us he sent it back to you in order 
 to be submitted to Lord Coventry, and signed by him ? A. 
 Exactly. 
 
 " Q. Submitted to Lord Coventry for the purpose of verification, 
 it was signed by him, and then remitted to the custody of the 
 Prince of Wales ? A. That is so." 
 
 Lord Coventry is called, and Lord Coventry says that agrees 
 with his recollection of what took place, subject to a little 
 qualification, which he makes as to the withdrawing of the 
 stakes a matter which I will deal with later on. But, with 
 regard to Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams, the 
 strongest thing of all is the document itself, for that document 
 concludes with the words: "The above is an accurate statement 
 of all the facts of the case ; " and immediately after these words 
 there are written the names of " Coventry " and of " Owen 
 Williams." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I put it to you that this is one of the cardinal 
 points of the case. I will show you the immense importance of 
 it in a few minutes ; but these five witnesses who come now, and 
 whose evidence is called overwhelming as to the night of the 
 loth, and is spoken of as overwhelming, as damning evidence 
 against Sir- William Gordon-Cumming to-day these five wit- 
 nesses come and swear that, in that document, there are six 
 definite and material misstatements of fact. My learned friend, 
 Sir Charles Russell, triumphantly numbered them up on Friday 
 afternoon error I, error 2, error 3, going on to error 6 in the 
 course of this single important statement. You are positively 
 asked to condemn Sir William Gordon-Cumming in this case 
 upon the evidence of people who now come, after all this lapse 
 of time, and say that, in that record verified by those gentlemen 
 who, whatever mistakes they may have made, felt so deeply their 
 responsibility, who felt that the thing might hereafter have to 
 be discussed, who felt that it was of vital importance to every- 
 body that an accurate record of all the facts of the case should 
 be set down and preserved you are asked to believe the evidence 
 of these witnesses against Sir William Gordon-Cumming, that 
 those gentlemen made six definite misstatements of fact. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, one or two of the alleged misstatements ot 
 fact are not of very great importance. I will read to you that 
 precis, which has been read ; it is called a precis, but it would 
 be more proper to call it a record, because I see that in the course
 
 179 
 
 of the evidence although during the last few days we have 
 habitually spoken of it as a precis General Owen Williams 
 more properly called it a record of the circumstances. I will 
 read it to you through again before I comment upon it. " For 
 the Doncaster Race Meeting of 1890, the following party were 
 the guests of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson at Tranby Croft." 
 Then comes a list of names which I need not trouble you with. 
 " On the evenings of the 8th and Qth September the party 
 played baccarat. After returning from the races on the roth 
 instant, Mr. Lycett Green having previously taken counsel with 
 his father and mother, made a statement to Lord Coventry to 
 
 the effect that " and there they set down the statement 
 
 which in their belief, and according to their recollection, 
 Mr. Lycett Green made ; but Mr. Lycett Green tells you 
 to-day, or in the course of this case, he never made that 
 statement at all that two of the matters contained in the 
 statement as set out there were never said by him at all 
 on that evening. I ask you to believe the document, and I 
 urge upon you that in a case of this gravity, nay, in a case of 
 any gravity or importance at all, when it is a question of word 
 against word, the evidence supplied by that document or a 
 document of that kind signed by persons in the position which 
 was then occupied by Lord Coventry and by General Owen 
 Williams, ought to overwhelm any amount of recollection such 
 as that of Mr. Lycett Green. 
 
 Now, I ask you to note what the statement was that Mr. 
 Lycett Green made on that evening the statement as these 
 gentlemen understood it and set it down. " His brother-in-law, 
 Mr. J. Wilson, told him on the evening of the 8th that Sir 
 W T illiam Gordon-Gumming systematically placed a larger stake 
 on the table, after the card had been declared in his favour, 
 than he had originally laid down ; and when the cards were 
 against him he frequently withdrew a portion of his stake, by 
 this means defrauding the bank. This conduct had also been 
 noticed by Mrs. Arthur Wilson " still referring to the 8th 
 "who informed her husband of what she had seen. Mrs. 
 Lycett Green and Mr. Levett having been also made acquainted 
 with the facts, it was agreed they should all carefully watch 
 the play on the following night, when, again, Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming was observed most distinctly to repeat the 
 same practice. On hearing this, Lord Coventry consulted 
 General Owen Williams." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, that sentence that I have read to you is the 
 accusation which was made by Mr. Lycett Green on that even- 
 ing, according to the evidence of the document which is signed 
 by these gentlemen as an accurate record. He says it is not 
 what he said on that evening, that he said nothing about with-
 
 180 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 drawing the stakes, that he said nothing about the.r agreeing 
 to watch. Which do you believe ? That document that 
 General Owen Williams, Lord Coventry, and the Prince of 
 Wales are jointly responsible for, or do you believe Mr. Lycett 
 Green ? Ask yourselves the question and answer it. Do you 
 not believe these three gentlemen to be correct in a matter of 
 this seriousness ? When you have before you the document 
 which, with all care and deliberation, was prepared and put 
 away to be a record of the facts have you any doubt that that 
 statement is true ? 
 
 Well, gentlemen, I am going on to the other part, but just 
 see how enormously important this is. In the passage which I 
 have read to you already, my learned friend Sir Charles Russell 
 says there are six definite misstatements of fact. He.says, it 
 states here, " that Mr. Wilson told Lycett Green on the evening 
 of the 8th ;" that it is said, is not true, Mr. Wilson told Lycett 
 Green on the morning of the 9th. " He frequently withdrew a 
 portion of his stake." They say no ; Mr. Lycett Green never 
 made such a statement. " That it had also been noticed by 
 Mrs. Arthur Wilson." They say, no ; it had not been noticed 
 by Mrs. Arthur Wilson, for she knew nothing at all on the first 
 night. " She informed her husband what she had seen." They 
 say she never did inform her husband of what she had seen, 
 and Mr. Lycett Green never made such a statement. " Mr. 
 Lycett Green and Mrs. Lycett Green, and Mr. Levett, having 
 also been made acquainted with the facts " they say now that 
 is not true. Mr. Levett was one of the persons who saw the 
 circumstances on the eighth, and he was not acquainted with it 
 by anybody. " That it was agreed they should all carefully 
 watch the play on the following night." They say now that is 
 not true ; they say they did not agree to watch the play, and 
 Mr. Lycett Green says he never told Lord Coventiy or General 
 Owen Williams that he did ; and here my learned friend's over- 
 whelming evidence upon which you are to condemn Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming to a fate which my learned friend 
 himself could not speak of without sorrow in his voice these 
 five people, at the very outset of the case, are confronted with 
 this written document and contradict it on five material points. 
 Well just let us see what is said about these points. As to some 
 of them, General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry do not 
 know anything ; they do not know, and could not know, whether 
 Mr. Arthur Stanley Wilson told his brother-in-law on the even- 
 ing of the 8th or on the morning of the Qth. They did not 
 know could not possibly know the sort of ornamental position 
 that Mr. Wilson appears to hold in his own house ; that he, 
 who is the host of the Prince of Wales and all these gentlemen 
 a man of mature age, capable of dealing with affairs of busi-
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 181 
 
 ness and affairs of the world is studiously kept in ignorance of 
 the whole plot and contrivance that is going on under his roof, 
 to entrap and detect one of his guests. They could not know 
 that. It may be I daresay it is, from what we have seen of 
 Mrs. Arthur Wilson a fact that she did not tell her husband ; 
 there were reasons, of course in the condition of things, why 
 the husband might have been extremely angry if the baccarat, 
 played at that house against his wish, should, on the very first 
 night, by the evidence of one of the " hot-headed boys " of whom 
 she spoke (Mr. Stanley Wilson), have led to a scandal like this. 
 But, gentlemen, upon the things which General Owen Williams 
 and Lord Coventry spoke to, the more important things, what 
 is it they say now ? I called General Owen Williams as my 
 witness, and I think now that it is a tremendous thing for you 
 to consider that I called the accused man into the witness-box, 
 in the first instance, to prove to you that he did not cheat at 
 cards upon that night, and I can call into the witness-box with- 
 out fear although I have to complain of their conduct in other 
 respects the banker and the croupier whose special attention 
 was called to the play upon that night, and to the stakes that 
 were put on the table ; I can call them before you and show 
 you that there was nothing whatever in the play that attracted 
 their attention, or aroused their suspicion. But, of course, I 
 make General Owen Williams my witness in the matter, and 
 this is put to him in cross-examination, and he is pressed by my 
 learned friend in regard to the question of the withdrawal of the 
 stakes, and he says, " Well, I will not undertake to say that 
 withdrawing was mentioned." Gentlemen, that pressure upon 
 General Owen Williams, that hesitation by General Owen 
 Williams now, when he is asked to carry back his memory to 
 the night of the loth of September and say what exactly was 
 spoken to him on that evening, illustrates and enforces the 
 point I have been putting to you, that the written docu- 
 ment is a better authority than the recollection of any witness 
 to-day. 
 
 The document is there. General Owen Williams wrote it, as 
 he told me, when the facts were fresh in his recollection, a few 
 days later, but the facts have to some extent faded from his 
 recollection, and it is put to him in cross-examination and 
 strongly put to him, " Well, but are you quite certain that this 
 was said ? " His answer is, and that really sums up General 
 Owen Williams' evidence, " At the time I wrote that I had a 
 clear recollection of what had taken place, and to the best of my 
 honest belief I recorded accurately all the facts. At this distance 
 of time it is impossible for me to say with precision whether any 
 particular statement was made to me or not." Gentlemen, that 
 is a reasonable thing, quite a reasonable and fair thing for a
 
 1 82 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 man to say ; but observe what the consequence is. The conse- 
 quence is to emphasise my argument, that you ought to look 
 back to the written and contemporaneous document in order to 
 find out what really took place. Then comes Lord Coventry, 
 and he is pressed with regard to the withdrawing of the stakes, 
 and among other qualifications for the office of adjudicating in a 
 difficult and delicate matter of this kind he has the qualification 
 of partial deafness, and his explanation when he is pressed with 
 regard to withdrawing is this : he says, " When the document 
 came to me I noticed that ; I did not myself remember with 
 accuracy what exactly had taken place, but I had heard some- 
 body say something about withdrawing the stakes, and I thought 
 General Owen Williams must have heard more clearly and in 
 more detail, and so I fully accepted the statement as accurate, 
 and I did not think it necessary to put in a side-note to say that 
 I did not clearly remember that." Here again, having the evi- 
 dence of Lord Coventry now, what he says is this : " Some 
 persons had certainly said something about withdrawing the 
 stakes." Now, gentlemen, the fact that an accusation was made 
 that night of withdrawing the stakes is of immense importance. 
 There is no such accusation now. The only thing in the evi- 
 dence which has been given to you which suggests withdrawing 
 the stake is, not withdrawing the stake at all, but abstaining 
 from adding to the stake, and I will show you how enormously 
 different that is. Mr. Stanley Wilson, who gives the account of 
 the only incident which could be suggested to be withdrawing 
 the stake at all, says, " I saw him with his hands forward ; there 
 were counters in them ; when the coup was declared against 
 him he took his hands back and dropped the counters back into 
 the pile." That is the account of the only incident which could 
 have suggested withdrawing, but it is not withdrawing a stake 
 k is not withdrawing a stake once placed on the table, and you 
 will find, when I come to analyse, I hope with your watchful 
 attention, the specific evidence of the facts in this case, the ques- 
 tion whether there was withdrawal or not is of supreme impor- 
 tance. I will show you everything that is alleged against Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming with the exception of a 2 counter, 
 which is the exception I shall have to deal with everything else 
 is not only consistent with, but is explained by the account 
 which I gave to you of Sir William Gordon-Cumming's play 
 last Monday, when I had not, and could not have, the least idea 
 what it was that the witnesses for the defence were going to say 
 they had actually seen. You shall see that I, by .the nature of 
 their answers to interrogatories, was kept in absolute ignorance 
 of what it was they were going to say ; you shall see that I, 
 dealing simply with what Sir William Gordon-Gumming was 
 able to tell me of the habits of his play and the character of his
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 183 
 
 play, was able to indicate beforehand the character of that play, 
 and you will find that everything is explained, and falls into the 
 explanation which I then, not knowing what they had to say, 
 suggested. But, gentlemen, if there had been a stake placed 
 upon the table, and part of it withdrawn when the cards were 
 seen to be against him, there could be no explanation at all. If 
 on the white paper the ^5 counter is placed, and that coup is 
 won, there will be almost immediately afterwards, according to 
 the play which I described to you, three red counters, or a red 
 counter and a ^ i o counter on that table, because Sir William Gor- 
 don-Cumming would be following the coup that had just been 
 won ; but if anybody had seen upon that paper before the play be- 
 gan three red counters, andhad seen Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 withdraw one of those counters when he saw the cards were against 
 him, there is no explanation that I am aware of in any circum- 
 stance or character of the game that would have enabled me to 
 suggest to you, and to prove to you, that he had not been guilty 
 of cheating. So now you see the enormous importance to me, 
 and to Sir William Gordon-Gumming, of this question of the 
 accusation of the withdrawing of counters withdrawing part of 
 his stake a thing which they in their precis say they were told 
 upon that evening he had frequently been seen to do. Some- 
 how or other the belief that Mr. Lycett Green and Mr. Stanley 
 Wilson had on that evening said they had seen it frequently 
 had got into the mind of General Owen Williams, and it so 
 nearly accorded with what Lord Coventry remembered that it 
 was not necessary for him to annotate it when he looked at the 
 record of events, and I ask you to say that that statement was 
 made on this point, and that as between the recollection now of 
 these young men and the recollection a week after the events of 
 Lord Coventry, General Owen Williams, and the Prince of 
 Wales, you think it is more likely that the Prince of Wales, 
 General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry are right. But, 
 gentlemen, the next point is a very serious one indeed, and it 
 will light up the character of the evidence which has been 
 given before you by the defendants in this case. Did they or 
 did they not agree to watch Sir William Gordon-Gumming, and 
 go to the baccarat table on the second evening with the belief 
 in their own minds that they, the members of the family, were 
 joined together to watch their guest, to find him out if he 
 cheated? They know perfectly well now the disgrace that 
 would attach to them if such a story were established in court. 
 They know that people would jest at the idea of being guests at 
 Tranby Croft, and that Tranby Croft would become a byword 
 for a house in which people could not safely stay if this were 
 established. Is it true? I point out to you that it is further 
 proved against their oaths they have all sworn to the contrary
 
 184 THR BACCARAT CAS 
 
 proved against their oaths by that record, and by the recol- 
 lection of General Owen Williams, and by Lord Coventry in 
 this court. Now, here again we are at a vital point of the case ; 
 did they or did they not agree to watch Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming on that second night? If they did, there is no 
 escape from the conclusion that they, to avoid acknowledging 
 conduct which everybody feels would be disgraceful, denied 
 upon oath that which did in fact take place. There is no 
 escape from that conclusion at all. Now pray decide, for it is 
 for you to decide, did they or did they not agree to watch ? 
 Here is the record, and General Owen Williams and Lord 
 Coventry do not minimise and modify upon this point in the 
 way they did with regard to the withdrawal. They have no 
 recollection of it. The question was not put to his Royal 
 Highness in detail. He was not challenged upon this point 
 that I am aware of, because I put to his Royal Highness the 
 record that he had taken care of, and he said that that record 
 was a true record of the events. In that record it is distinctly 
 stated, in the most definite possible way, and the names of the 
 five persons are mentioned, " it was agreed that they should all 
 carefully watch the play on the following night." Now what do 
 General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry say about it now ? 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : Upon that point the Prince could 
 not be asked, because I mean it would have been useless to ask 
 him, as this is a statement of what passed with Lord Coventry 
 before they saw the Prince. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I am very much obliged to your 
 lordship ; that no doubt is so. All that can be said about it is 
 that Mr. Lycett Green said he repeated his statement, I thought 
 before the Prince; but still my lord has pointed out a matter 
 which had escaped me, gentlemen, and my observation as to 
 the Prince being cross-examined about that has no point, as I 
 agree ; but with regard to General Owen Williams and Lord 
 Coventry I am going to point out to you what they themselves 
 said. General Owen Williams said this : " Mr. Lycett Green 
 told me they had discussed the question " who had discussed 
 it? "that he and his brother and Mr. Arthur Wilson (and I 
 think he said the other accusers) had discussed the matter with 
 him, and in my precis I recorded my impression that they had 
 agreed to watch. They did watch. There is no question," said 
 General Owen Williams, " about that, but I say my impression 
 was that they agreed to watch." At another part of his 
 evidence he said that Mr. Lycett Green told him that if they 
 saw Sir William Gordon- Gumming cheat he was to be 
 denounced. They had determined to denounce him. Now 
 what does Lord Coventry say about that ? Lord Coventry was 
 not my witness ; he was examined in chief by my learned
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 185 
 
 friend, and at the end of Lord Coventry's evidence my learned 
 friend, who knew perfectly well the enormous importance of 
 this point with regard to the watching, because if you believe 
 that they did watch you can scarcely with an easy mind accept 
 the evidence in the course of which they have sworn that there 
 was no such agreement to watch at all but my learned friend, 
 Sir Charles Russell, saw the importance of this, and he says 
 this : "There is one question I ought to ask you in reference 
 to Mr. Lycett Green. It is proper it should be asked at once." 
 That is the way an experienced counsel indicates to the jury 
 that he is leading up to something that is going to be against 
 him : 
 
 " Q. You have a recollection of Mr. Lycett Green saying 
 something about watching Sir William Gordon-Gumming on 
 the second night ? A, Yes, I have." 
 
 Note that question and answer. 
 
 " Q. You have a recollection of Mr. Lycett Green saying 
 something about watching Sir William Gordon-Gumming on 
 the second night? A. Yes, I have." 
 
 " Q. Tell us what your recollection of what was said about 
 that was? A. My recollection of it is this, that Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming had been seen to cheat on the first night. 
 The witnesses had spoken of it amongst themselves " (observe, 
 almost the same words as those of General Owen Williams), 
 " and they determined that if they saw any cheating the next 
 night they would denounce him. That was the impression left 
 upon my mind." 
 
 Now, gentlemen, the evidence then stands, in my submission 
 to you, complete. The record sets down not casually not, for 
 instance, that it was agreed to watch as if that were Lord 
 Coventry's account of what had taken place but in specific 
 detail, it was agreed that they should all carefully watch on the 
 following night. That is not a vague record of something that 
 is believed to have taken place ; it is the specific record of 
 what the man has heard. You have that record in this docu- 
 ment itself, and you also have the living testimony of Lord 
 Coventry, who now, when his recollection may be a little 
 weakened, and certainly his inclination would hardly be in 
 favour of the point which I am making, says, " Yes, I do 
 recollect that something was said about watching. I was told 
 that the witnesses had discussed it amongst themselves, and 
 that they had determined that if cheating took place on the 
 following night they would denounce it." And, gentlemen, 
 there is not only that, but you know of that entry in the diary 
 made without concert with General Owen Williams (in Lord 
 Coventry's diary) by himself on the following morning, days 
 before he saw the precis. He says in this "he communicated"
 
 1 86 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 (that is, speaking of Wilson) " to Mr. Lycett Green, who de- 
 termined to watch the person on the following night," so that 
 something undoubtedly was said with regard to watching the 
 person. Now, gentlemen, that evidence, as I say, is complete, 
 it is one of the specific points upon which you will have to make 
 up your mind. Did the Wilson family agree to watch when 
 .they went to that table that night ? They, with undoubtedly a 
 strong social interest in getting rid of this imputation upon 
 them, all deny it. It is for you to say whether that denial is 
 true. Against the denial you have the record, you have the 
 evidence of these witnesses which I have just quoted to you, 
 and you have the evidence of the note in the diary, and the 
 immediate recollection of Lord Coventry, and upon that issue I 
 ask you to come to the conclusion (and I submit to you that 
 the evidence is overwhelming in favour of the conclusion) that 
 the record drawn up by Lord Coventry and General Owen 
 Williams was true, that the Wilson family did agree to watch 
 on the evening in question. Now, gentlemen, that is what I 
 have to say with regard to the correctness of this document. 
 But before I leave it, there is one other observation to make, to 
 which I shall have to come back presently, but the importance 
 of which I venture to think is so great that I desire to indicate 
 it to you now. Supposing you had a doubt, or suppose you 
 did not believe that there was this agreement to watch, suppose 
 you were to come to the conclusion, as I submit against the 
 best evidence in the case, that they did not agree to watch, the 
 other observation that I have to make about the document 
 affects the second part of my learned friend's evidence. My 
 learned friend says, " I call five witnesses before you as to 
 facts ; they could see and did see, and are honest, and you 
 must believe them." He spent more of his time in pressing 
 upon you that which I feel to be a very grave and serious 
 matter in this case, that the Prince of Wales and General 
 Owen Williams and Lord Coventry had formed an opinion 
 hostile to Sir William Gordon-Gumming. Yes, gentlemen, but 
 the opinion that, they formed against Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming was formed upon what they believed they had been 
 told by the defendants, and you have to consider yourselves 
 that the statement that they accepted at the time as against 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming must have been the statement 
 which they afterwards put down in the record. Supposing it 
 to be that which had actually taken place, it must have been 
 what Mr. Lycett Green told them. He had been the spokes- 
 man of the party. He had been chosen as the representative, 
 so to speak, of the accusers. He' was the man who repeated 
 his story over and over again. Have you any doubt that 
 General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry recollected what
 
 i8 7 
 
 that story was ? Now, just think of the sudden shock that must 
 have come to Lord Coventry when, at a quarter-past seven that 
 evening of the Wednesday, Mr. Lycett Green came to his room 
 and made a statement to him. Mr. Lycett Green made the state- 
 ment of what he had to tell, not about himself alone, but about 
 other persons .whom Lord Coventry never spoke to on the sub- 
 ject, so far as .we can see, on that evening at all. But Lycett 
 Green was the person who made the statement. Says Lord 
 Coventry, " I think this is a very serious thing; I cannot act 
 alone ; I should like to have the help of General Owen 
 Williams." They go to General Owen Williams, and there, in 
 Lord Coventry's presence, Lycett Green repeats the statement 
 which he has to make. Then they think it very serious ; they 
 recognise its gravity ; they take him to the Prince of Wales, I 
 do not say immediately, but in the course of the evening, and 
 before the Prince of Wales, with particularity, so we are asked 
 to believe, Lycett Green repeated the story which Lord Coven- 
 try had already heard twice and which General Owen Williams 
 had already heard once, and that story must have been riveted 
 upon their recollections when they wrote that record, for it is 
 not so often in English society that a soldier and a gentle- 
 man is suddenly charged with cheating at cards, that Lord 
 Coventry and General Owen Williams would be likely to 
 think lightly of it. Mrs. Arthur Wilson may hear of it one 
 moment and forget it the next, as we hear ; but that is not the 
 case with people in society like that in which General Owen 
 Williams and Lord Coventry have all their lives habitually 
 lived and moved. So that the horror of this matter must 
 have been extreme ; and does any one of you doubt that 
 that evening there was in the minds and knowledge of Lord 
 Coventry, of General Owen Williams, and of the Prince of 
 Wales a clear and definite idea of what it was that Lycett 
 Green had said? His Royal Highness was not content to listen 
 to the statement only. We have it in evidence that he asked 
 questions of Mr. Lycett Green with regard to the matter, and 
 His Royal Highness afterwards accepts this and witnesses this 
 as a true record of what took place. And so, gentlemen, closing 
 my dealing with this record written in the following week, I 
 point out that it is the best evidence which you have, because it 
 is the evidence which those three gentlemen gave within a 
 few days of the occurrences. I point out to you that being 
 the best evidence you have or can ask for, it is in direct con- 
 tradiction to the evidence of the five persons upon whose 
 testimony you are asked, to destroy Sir William Gumming, and 
 I point out to you that it represents,, and must represent, the 
 story which had been told to, and accepted by, His Royal 
 Highness and Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams at
 
 18 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 the time when they told Sir William Gordon-Gumming that the 
 evidence was overwhelming against him. You will find, accept- 
 ing the statement of the defendants' witnesses for the moment, 
 that it is incorrect. You then come to see the fact that his 
 Royal Highness and General Owen Williams and Lord Coven- 
 try accepted that accusation of guilt, accepted against their 
 friend and companion and comrade of years this statement 
 which was put before them that night, and they accepted a 
 statement against him which his accusers now say they never 
 made at all. 
 
 {Adjourned for a short time.'] 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : Gentlemen, I have discussed and 
 closed my observations upon the record which was made at the 
 time, and I shall not have to come back to that except for 
 reference to the passage which it contains, which has been so 
 strangely and unexpectedly explained by the diary of Lord 
 Coventry, as to the reasons which induced Lord Coventry and 
 General Owen Williams to take the course which they un- 
 happily did on the night of the loth September ; but I have 
 pointed out to you that the two methods in which this has been 
 used against me, or the two classes of evidence which it is 
 suggested I have difficulty in meeting, are, first, the evidence 
 as to the matters which actually took place on the two nights ot 
 the 8th and gth, and, secondly, the belief of his Royal High- 
 ness and Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams in the 
 accusation then made. In proper order, I come next to deal with 
 the evidence with regard to what actually took place, and I beg 
 you to remember what it was I told you on Monday as to the 
 play of Sir William Gordon-Gumming. It is most essential, 
 and I am sure my lord, who has paid every attention to this 
 matter of the interrogatories, and the answers to interrogatories 
 in the course of the case, will appreciate in a moment the point 
 which I am going to put to you, that when I spoke to you on 
 behalf of Sir William Gordon-Gumming I had no knowledge of 
 what sort of accusation would be made against him, except 
 such as I could get from the answers to interrogatories. Now, 
 gentlemen, the answers to interrogatories in this case are some- 
 what remarkable. You are aware that when any citizen makes 
 con plaint that he has been maligned, and his accusers say that 
 the\ are prepared in court to prove the truth of their accusa- 
 tion ;, he is entitled to know what it is substantially that they 
 allege against him ; and so in due course in this case interro- 
 gatories are applied. We asked them what accusation they 
 made against Sir William Gordon-Gumming. Gentlemen, the 
 answers to interrogatories, all drawn by the same solicitor, who
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 189 
 
 appears for all the defendants in this case, agree in their words, 
 that is to say, one of them will do for all, and the answer is this 
 it is the answer in this case of Mr. Lycett Green : " I saw 
 the plaintiff cheat at baccarat by placing a larger stake on the 
 table after the cards had been declared in his favour, than he 
 had originally laid down," and the only information which I had 
 or could have at the time I made my opening speech in this 
 case to you, was that each of the five defendants said that that 
 was the accusation they made against Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming, that after the card had been declared in his favour, 
 that is, after everybody at the table knew that he must win, he 
 had increased the stake which he had put upon the table. Now 
 I think you will follow me I am sure you can in the observa- 
 tions which I am going to ask you to consider. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : Is it not more absolutely correct 
 to say, when everybody must have known his tableau would win ? 
 It makes some little difference. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : If your lordship pleases when 
 everybody must have known that the tableau on which he was 
 playing would win. I am very much obliged to my lord. There 
 is nothing I am more grateful for, in the course of perhaps 
 the most responsible and most anxious case I have ever had 
 in my life, than that my lord should keep me exact as to the 
 matters which I am putting to you. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : Sir Edward, you do not need it, 
 but I hope you understand I really only interfere, whenever I do 
 interfere, simply to help you. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I am sure of that, my lord. That 
 is why I express my gratitude. Gentlemen, I only knew that 
 that was their allegation, that he had added counters after the 
 cards were declared, whether by the banker or by the person 
 who for the moment was representing the table at which they 
 played. But do you remember what I said to you and proved 
 in examination in chief about Sir William Gordon-Cumming's 
 play ? Knowing from the information which one had to get 
 for the purpose of this case, what the system of play was with 
 many players in the game of baccarat, I could see at once that 
 there were points in the game at which that might happen, 
 which an inexperienced and careless or prejudiced observer 
 would take to be cheating, and I explained to you in my opening, 
 and Sir William Gordon-Gumming proved in his evidence in 
 chief, what his system of play was. Now we need not go back 
 upon discussing the question of baccarat ; I assume that every- 
 body who has been listening to this case is an accomplished 
 baccarat player at this time, so that one need not occupy time 
 with the details of it, but if is clear that if you have any system 
 at all in baccarat, as it is purely a game of chance, it would be
 
 TOO THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 a system of following the'luck, and the gambler always follows 
 the luck. If he chooses to play high, he follows one single coup 
 by trying to make a second, and that is the only way in which 
 he can expect to win in the long run, if he is successful in follow- 
 ing the single coup, and I told you that Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming, if he staked ^5, would, when he received the ^5 
 counter from the croupier, add a ^5 counter from his own stock 
 to that one, and thereby make the ^15 for the stake for the 
 next time. Now, gentlemen, observe that I told you that, 
 before it was possible either for Sir William Gordon-Gumming, 
 or for me, to have the slightest idea what the supposed charge 
 against him would be, how it would be framed, or what would 
 be described before you, and when you come to look at the 
 evidence with regard to these cases, upon the number of which 
 I will in a moment make an observation, you will find that in 
 every case Sir William Gordon-Gumming staked a ^5 counter, 
 and in all the cases but one I think ^15 was the amount which 
 they thought that they saw paid to him. Now, gentlemen, just 
 let me ask your attention to this. We have to consider the 
 recollection and the observation of people upon two nights of 
 baccarat play. Nobody except Stanley Wilson saw any foul 
 play except a person who was expected to see it. I beg you 
 to note that observation, and I think you will see the importance 
 of it. It has been truly said, that the eye sees what the eye 
 brings the power of seeing. It might with even more truth 
 be said, if there be gradations of truth it might with as much 
 truth be said that the eye sees what it brings the expectation of 
 seeing. The explanation of every conjurer's success, the explana- 
 tion of every spiritualistic medium's acceptance, the explanation 
 of every Theosophist's sdance, is, that the people are brought into 
 a state of mind in which they expect to see a thing, and they see 
 it. You know well the old story of the humourist who stopped 
 at the end of the Strand, and pointed to the lion which then 
 stood upon Northumberland House, and declared that its tail 
 wagged. You will remember that a crowd was assembled round 
 him in two minutes, and before three minutes half the crowd 
 were declaring that they had seen the tail move, although it 
 was a stone one. You have yourselves seen a conjurer's 
 performance ; you have seen him fix your attention upon one 
 particular thing, and tell you that something else is going to 
 happen, and you know you have been deceived, and the thing 
 has never happened, although you have seen it apparently, and 
 would declare it had, though it was in defiance of all the laws 
 of nature that ever you learned or heard of. All of us know 
 that the eye sees what the eye brings the expectation of seeing. 
 That is a true axiom, and, applying it here, there is only one 
 witness who saw anything wrong, or says he saw anything
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF igi 
 
 wrong, in Sir William Gordon-Cumming's play, without having 
 been told beforehand that he was going to see him cheat ; and 
 if you examine with your intelligence the particular acts alleged 
 against him, you will see, with regard to Mr. Berkeley Levett, 
 and especially with regard to Mrs. Wilson, what singular 
 prominence comes into that consideration. But let us ask 
 what the play was, and who were the persons playing there. I 
 am not going in detail through the evidence which I have 
 elicited with regard to the experience of these witnesses. My 
 learned friend corrtmented upon my long cross-examination. I 
 am not going to occupy you by going through it, but cross- 
 examination has to be careful if it is to be of any use, and time 
 ought not to be grudged in a matter so important as this. 
 What was the game they were playing, and how were they 
 playing it ? On the 7th they sat down at three tables not all 
 the party, but some of the party. Those three tables were ot 
 different heights the centre one higher than the others, and 
 at the centre one His Royal Highness takes the bank with a 
 bank of ^100, and at the table (the table at which Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming was playing) there are sitting Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett, Mr. Stanley Wilson, Lord Edward Somerset, and Mrs. 
 Wilson, at all events other persons were playing. On that 
 first evening something was said about Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming's stake early in the evening, and what was his 
 answer? He said, "My stake is upon the paper." He had 
 got a piece of white paper upon which, under the well-known 
 headings "B." and " P.," for "banker" and "player," he put his 
 stake ; and you are asked to believe that at the very first coup, 
 on the first evening that he sat down, something happened 
 which might be interpreted as an act of cheating. Now, 
 gentlemen, I ask you to fix your attention upon this statement, 
 because, as I think I shall show you, it lights up and explains a 
 great number of the subsequent statements. When Mr. 
 Stanley Wilson was in the witness-box Mr. Stanley Wilson 
 described the incident which had been already in advance des- 
 cribed by my learned friend, Sir Charles Russell, and to which 
 Sir Charles Russell drew particular attention, and drew your 
 particular attention in a way which, as I thought, indicated 
 that he relied upon it as one of the acts of cheating. The 
 account which Mr. Stanley Wilson gave was this. I should 
 have taken my learned friend's introduction first, because, of 
 course, that attracted your attention, and directed your atten- 
 tion to this incident. Sir Charles Russell said that when they 
 sat down at the table Mr. Stanley Wilson, the son of the house, 
 desired to see what other people were playing, and he looked 
 round and he saw that Sir William Gordon-Gumming had a ^5 
 counter upon his white paper, and he saw immediately after-
 
 192 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 wards that Sir William Gordon-Gumming had three .$ 
 counters upon his paper, and was paid ^15. That was the 
 account he gave of what he saw. I understood from my 
 learned friend's opening, and I think you must have under- 
 stood from the way in which the evidence was given, that 
 it was suggested that Sir William Gordon-Gumming had 
 cheated on that occasion. The evidence with regard to it is as 
 complete as the evidence with regard to any act that is alleged 
 the one ^5, the three ,$ counters, and the ,15 paid, but 
 when I came to cross-examine Mr. Stanley Wilson with regard 
 to this, and asked him whether he imputed cheating to Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming on that occasion, he said "No." 
 Well, gentlemen, just let me ask you to remember this. 
 Supposing I had not cross-examined Mr. Stanley Wilson at 
 all, but had left that unchallenged, my learned friend might 
 have said : " There is a clear act of cheating, as to which Sir 
 Edward Clarke has asked no question." I did ask him that 
 question, and I put this question to him : 
 
 " Q. Am I to understand that you do not suggest that you 
 saw any cheating on the first coup ? A. No, certainly not ; I do 
 not suggest anything of the sort not the first coup." 
 
 Gentlemen, in the face of that answer, given by Mr. Stanley 
 Wilson, my learned friend has this morning, in his speech to 
 you, said that in the light of the evidence which has now been 
 given, you may well think that that was an act of cheating. By 
 what rules, by what canons of evidence, in the light of what 
 judgment, is a man to hold his honour before a jury on a 
 charge of cheating at cards if this is the way in which evidence 
 is to be treated ; evidence given by a witness, which, if 
 not cross-examined to, would have appeared to be an act 
 of cheating, whereas when cross-examined to he says : " I sug- 
 gest no act of cheating at all not the least; "and then his 
 counsel, after he has left the witness-box, says : "In the light 
 of the evidence that you now have you may take a different 
 view of it." 
 
 Gentlemen, it is hard indeed to deal, and to deal patiently, 
 with some of the suggestions that have been made in this case, 
 and some of the attacks made on the client with whom at this 
 moment my interests are bound up, but why this suggestion 
 should be made to you when the witness himself has distinctly 
 refused to make it at all, I am at a loss to understand. Gentle- 
 men, that incident, if you watch it carefully, is the key of the 
 whole matter. I will show you that Mr. Berkeley Levett, of 
 whom I will not now, or at any time, speak with harshness I 
 will show you that Mr. Berkeley Levett, as far as he tells you 
 what he saw, saw that and nothing else, and that is exactly 
 what I told you would happen. I told you in my opening that
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 193 
 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming staking the ^5, the system of 
 play would be that for the next coup there would be 1$ upon 
 the paper, the $ he staked originally, the ^5 he took from the 
 croupier, and the ^5 which he added himself, and you will 
 notice this for it is very remarkable in all these instances 
 which the defendants' witnesses refer to as proving his cheating, 
 the stake which they saw upon the paper originally was a $ 
 stake. Now, gentlemen, do just imagine. Supposing for one 
 moment that this extraordinary event had happened ; that Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming, who for twenty-three years had 
 passed the life of which I have spoken to you, who had no 
 conceivable reason in his own private circumstances to try and 
 get dishonest winnings from his friend, the Prince of Wales, 
 supposing for the moment that he condescended to acts of this 
 kind, what do you think he would have done ? Do you think 
 that, intending to cheat, he would have said to the Prince of 
 Wales, as it is proved by the defendants' witnesses he did say, 
 " My stakes are on the white paper " ? Do you think that if he 
 had intended to cheat he would have chosen as the counter 
 which was to be the instrument of his cheating, precisely that 
 which it is most easy to see, whether on white paper, or on 
 tapestry tablecloth, or on the green baize that covered this 
 improvised baccarat table of the second night. There is no 
 counter among these counters, all the denominations of which I 
 hope you will look at and examine there is no counter so obvious 
 and so clear to sight, at any distance you like to name, as the 5 
 red counter, trying it on any cloth you will. On the tapestry 
 cloth, if you take the brown counter, or the yellowish counter, 
 it might be very difficult to see it such a table was used 
 the first night ; but on that night, at the very first coup, he is 
 putting his ^5 counters upon a white paper, when, as you see 
 for yourselves, it is about the most conspicuous combination 
 that could possibly be invented. Did you see Mr. Arthur 
 Wilson when I tried him with the counters, and he was in the 
 witness-box ? He did not know these counters before ; they 
 did not belong to the Wilsons' ; he had not seen them before 
 that night, or played with them before that night. So far as 
 Stanley Wilson is concerned he had not seen them since that 
 night until this trial, but when I, in his presence, took these 
 counters in my hand and threw them down one by one, looking 
 at it from the distance of that box there, he was able to tell me 
 2 t S) l , an d so on. Gentlemen, just consider what you 
 are asked to believe. The man who is supposed to be intending 
 to cheat some of the keenest eyes in Europe selects the most 
 conspicuous counter as the instrument for his cheating, puts it 
 on a white paper, which makes it more conspicuous than any 
 other object on the table could be, and continues during the 
 
 N
 
 194 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 evening to stake the 5 counter, when the very fact that that 
 was his habitual stake would call the attention of the croupier 
 and of the banker to the change, if there had been a change, in 
 the amount they were called upon to pay. I said to call the 
 attention of the croupier and the banker. Let us see what 
 baccarat is. We need not discuss its ethics or attractions at this 
 moment. For this moment I am on the question of what can 
 be seen or known. We know this baccarat is not a game which 
 involves very much trouble to most of the members of the party. 
 If you are sitting at a baccarat table you stake your money, ^5, 
 \o, without the slightest idea what cards will be dealt to any- 
 body, and it is pure chance as far as you are concerned. On 
 the table only six cards are put down, so that it is not a game 
 where the other players have cards in their own hands to which 
 they are attending. I dare say the game of vingt-et-un is one 
 which you yourselves are more familiar with than baccarat, and 
 it has been suggested that it is like that. Yes, it is like baccarat 
 in some respects, but it is unlike it in this remarkable character- 
 istic, a man might have an opportunity of cheating at vingt-et-un 
 because everybody at the table has got his own cards up before 
 him thinking whether he will take fresh cards or not in order 
 to make the twenty-one, but in the game of baccarat there 
 are only three people of the whole number sitting at the 
 table who are handling cards, to use the technical phrase, 
 the others have nothing in the world to do but to put 
 down the stake which they intend to risk on the tableau 
 to which they belong, to see what other people are staking 
 at the same tableau, and to wait until their deputy who 
 is handling the cards has shown whether he wins or 'not; so 
 that the other people who are . sitting at the table other 
 than the man who at the moment is handling the cards, 
 have nothing in the world to do except to look round and 
 see what people are staking ; and there is a certain amount of 
 curiosity about that, even at the most innocent and staid bacca- 
 rat tables. But, gentlemen, there are two people sitting at the 
 table who have a different and more important duty to perform. 
 The banker is keenly interested in what the stakes are, because 
 it is his money that is. being lost or won. Whether on the first 
 night His Royal Highness was taking the bank alone, I am not 
 able to say, but I understand that on the second night, when 
 General Owen Williams was acting as a croupier, the bank 
 was between them ; but, observe this, the banker is playing 
 against the money of the rest of the table. It is important to him 
 to see how much he is likely to win or lose, and he and the 
 croupier, if there be a croupier, must look at the stakes that have 
 been put up before the cards go round for more than one reason. 
 Of course the croupier has nothing whatever to do except look
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 195 
 
 round the table at the stakes nothing whatever. He never 
 handles a card. Unless he is sharing in the bank he cannot win 
 or lose a single penny upon the game. His duty is (and I doubt 
 not that when his Royal Highness is the banker any one of his 
 friends most actively performs the duty) to see that the stakes 
 are properly put up, and that payment is made and received 
 properly on behalf of the banker. He has nothing else to do 
 but that. The stakes are put up, and he has to look at the 
 stakes before the banker has to pay them. The banker and the 
 croupier would both look. But there is another reason why the 
 stakes must be looked at, and that is a reason peculiar to bacca- 
 rat. It appears you start a baccarat table with a bank of, say, 
 100. You never can be called upon to pay the players more 
 than the ^100 with which you start, that is to say, if at the first 
 coup both tableaux win and they win .70, 70 would be paid 
 out to them by the banker or the croupier, and at the next coup 
 you never could be called upon to pay more than .30, that would 
 be all that would be left in the bank, and if the croupier looking 
 round saw that the stakes which were upon the table exceeded 
 the sum of ^30 he would know that they would have to be dealt 
 with according to a technical fashion, which I know, but I need 
 not stop to explain to you, by which the banker would only pay 
 the ^30 which remains in his hands. So that the croupier at 
 baccarat has not only the ordinary duty of dealing with money 
 and nothing else, collecting the stakes and paying the stakes, 
 but he has also the duty before any round is played of looking 
 round the table to see whether the collective stakes put down 
 upon the table do, or do not, exceed the amount which at that 
 moment is in the bank. But there is a third reason, and in the 
 gravity of the case you will not think I am delaying you, or 
 troubling you in pointing this out I am sure there is a third 
 reason for the banker looking very carefully at the stakes that 
 are made, and it is this : he may lose to one tableau, and win 
 from the other. He may lose to a tableau with 60 staked, he 
 may win from a tableau with only 10 staked ; and as I have 
 pointed out to you before, it may govern his judgment as to 
 whether he takes a new card or not ; the question of the 
 amount on either tableau may govern his judgment whether he 
 takes a new card or not. I devoted myself to the explanation of 
 it before, and I think I need hardly repeat it, but it is very 
 simple. At six, at baccarat, no player would take another card ; 
 at four, a player certainly would take another card ; at five, it 
 would be an open question with him, and it would enter his 
 mind it is the only casual gleam of intelligence which gets 
 into a game of baccarat whether he ought to take another 
 card or not. If he took another card the banker would know 
 for a certainty that he had not more than five in his hand
 
 196 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 the first time, and supposing he took another card and took a 
 nine, then the five, which would be the largest he could have 
 had before, must be added to the nine, making fourteen, then 
 the ten being cancelled the banker would know that he could 
 not have more than four in his hand, and if the banker had five 
 in his hand and his tableau, with the four for its highest possible, 
 was a large tableau in respect of stakes, of course the banker 
 would not run the risk of himself taking a nine and reducing 
 his score again. So that you have three necessities for look- 
 ing at the stakes. The croupier has to look at them in order 
 to see what he will have to pay and receive ; the croupier 
 and banker look at them in order to see that they do not col- 
 lectively exceed the amount which is in the bank ; and the banker 
 looks at them, looks at them critically the one side against the 
 other, in order to see whether it will be necessary for him to 
 have a new card or not. Now, gentlemen, you are asked to 
 believe that at this table Sir William Gordon-Gumming sat 
 down and took the most conspicuous of all his counters, put it 
 on a sheet of white paper, and, in order to make it more con- 
 spicuous, told the banker, told His Royal Highness, that his 
 stake would be found upon the sheet of white paper, and that 
 he went on putting it upon the white paper, cheating again 
 and again at that table, when I am able to call the banker and 
 the croupier of the second night to say that they never saw any 
 cheating at all ; and, gentlemen, when there were seated at that 
 table persons also of experience for Mr. Tyrwhitt Wilson, 
 Lord Edward Somerset, and Captain Somerset were sitting at 
 that table. Lord Edward Somerset and Captain Somerset 
 have been here in court ; it was not for me to call them, and 
 you may take it as they were not called, that they saw nothing. 
 Gentlemen, my learned friend quotes against me the very 
 reasonable suggestion that if you say a thing has happened if 
 it is said that a thing has happened, and three men are called 
 who saw it, it is no answer to call half-a-dozen men who did not 
 see it. No. If you call three men, and they say, "I was going 
 down one side of Fleet Street and I saw something in a 
 window," and to contradict that you call six men who were 
 walking on the other side of Fleet Street and did not see the 
 window at all, the contradiction is idle, I agree ; but if you have 
 got a party of players sitting at a table so small as that which 
 is described, the size of an ordinary whist-table, two on either 
 side, and the banker and the croupier sitting possibly a little 
 higher, but at all events looking down from their table to that 
 table, and the experienced players, and the inexperienced 
 players, until they were told what to look for, did not see it, 
 what is the conclusion ? Why, that these inexperienced players 
 had blundered and were mistaken, and attacked the character
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 197 
 
 of an honourable gentleman for acts not investigated at the 
 time, not capable of being recalled now except by those who 
 have had the happiness of frequent interviews with Mr. George 
 Lewis for the purpose of preparing their evidence in this case 
 not now distinctly remembered ; but actions which, when 
 they are examined, are perfectly consistent with honourable 
 dealing on the part of the man who is accused. Let me press 
 upon you the importance of that the people who saw this 
 thought that they were going to see it. It is most interesting 
 when you come to analyse the evidence. Mr. Arthur Stanley 
 Wilson began by telling you about this incident when the three 
 counters were seen on the paper, and he did not suggest there 
 . was any cheating at all. He then went on to say this, that he 
 was looking over Lord Edward Somerset's hand, that Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming was sitting between him and Lord 
 Edward Somerset, Lord Edward Somerset had the cards up, 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming leaned over, and you remember 
 Mr. Arthur Stanley Wilson said, " I was leaning in the same 
 direction and looked into his hand. I saw something red in 
 his hands." Gentlemen, try it for yourselves. It is almost 
 impossible to arrange red counters in your hands in a way that 
 other people looking at them from the outside will see them, 
 and yet in such a way that will enable you to drop them but I 
 pass from that. His account is this, that there had been a 
 counter placed upon the white paper, and that after the card 
 was declared although he says presently, " when it was virtually 
 declared," for he does not quite hold to the expression after 
 the card was declared he said Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 dropped out of his hands three more red counters, so as to 
 make 20. Gentlemen, 20 on that night was a perfectly 
 phenomenal and exceptional stake. It would have been noticed 
 directly, and Mr. Arthur Stanley Wilson, who is the only 
 authority for this and who, if anybody at the table was what 
 M rs. Wilson called " a hot-headed boy," would probably be 
 entitled to that distinction Mr. Arthur Stanley Wilson is the 
 only person who sees it and suggests to you that whereas right 
 out upon the table, on the white paper, in the view of the 
 Prince, of the Somersets, of everybody else, one ^5 counter 
 had been staked, that after the cards were declared Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming dropped three more red counters upon that 
 same piece of white paper, and that they were paid without any 
 demur at all. Gentlemen, this is the only incident of cheating 
 alleged to have been seen by any person before the idea of 
 cheating got into his mind, and that rests and rests only upon 
 the evidence of Mr. Stanley Wilson. But now, what did Mr. 
 Stanley Wilson do ? Mr. Stanley Wilson, when he sees this, 
 tells Mr. Levett.
 
 198 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 Mr. ASQUITH : There is another incident first. He saw it 
 withdrawn. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : My friend is harping on the with- 
 drawal. I do not understand the way in which the case is being 
 fought. My friend interrupts me to say that there was another 
 incident of cheating. 
 
 Mr. ASQUITH : No. My learned friend must not say that ; I 
 am only correcting rum in his sequence of events. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I am dealing with the incidents 
 of cheating. Does my learned friend mean to say that there was 
 another before ? 
 
 Mr. ASQUITH ? No. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : Then I am right, and I am going, 
 straight on. After that incident of alleged cheating, he calls 
 Mr. Berkeley Levett's attention to it, and then Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett sees something. Now again I ask your attention to 
 minute details, for no detail can be too minute when you know 
 the results which may depend upon your judgment with regard 
 to this matter. But I call your attention to this. Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett having been told of this, sees two matters and he 
 describes them. If you watch you will notice that the incident 
 which he describes as being an act of cheating is precisely the 
 same, described in the same language, leaving, if it were un- 
 detected and unquestioned, the same inference, as that first 
 incident of which Mr. Stanley Wilson spoke, and which now 
 Mr. Stanley Wilson does not suggest to be an act of cheating ; 
 for Mr. Berkeley Levett says this, ,5 was staked, still observe, 
 on the paper, when the banker declared the coup he says Sir 
 William added two other counters, and he uses this, which I 
 think must have been noticed as a most remarkable expression : 
 " When I looked the second time there were three red counters 
 upon the paper." I dare say there were. There naturally 
 would be. He had looked away. He saw the one ,5 counter 
 staked. The coup was declared, he looked away for some 
 other purpose, and when he looked again there were three upon 
 the table. That is precisely what Sir William Gordon-Cum- 
 ming told you. There would be three upon the paper : the one 
 which was first staked, the one which the croupier paid, and the 
 one which Sir William Gordon-Gumming had contributed from 
 his own stock. But, gentlemen, there is a more important 
 matter even than this. I, of course, had to cross-examine to 
 this. I, of course, saw the identity in point of description 
 between that which Mr. Berkeley Levett said he saw on that 
 occasion, and that which Mr. Stanley Wilson had stated he 
 saw upon the previous occasion on the very first coup and so 
 I asked him this, and the answer was the most remarkable 
 revelation to you of the fact that it was the expectation ot
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 199 
 
 seeing that had brought the sight, which I think could possibly 
 have been got out in cross-examination. I asked him, " At the 
 time you saw what you have described, do you suggest that you 
 made up your mind that it was done dishonestly?" What was 
 his answer Yes or no? Neither, but this, "I had been told 
 that he was cheating." No witness could have more uncon- 
 sciously given in evidence to you the current of his thoughts 
 with regard to the matter, and the explanation of his putting 
 the interpretation of dishonesty upon that which might have 
 been perfectly honestly done, than that witness unconsciously 
 did on that occasion an answer which deserves to be remem- 
 bered and quoted. " At the time you saw what you have 
 described, do you suggest that you made up your mind that it 
 was done dishonestly ?" " I had been told that he was cheating." 
 There is the revelation of the whole thing. Mr. Arthur Stanley 
 Wilson has told you, and you know, what sort of evening it was. 
 This was the evening of the Monday. They were the two 
 youngest men who were sitting at the table. They exchanged 
 their observations, observations the extent of which if there had 
 been sitting at the table an experienced and intentional cheat, 
 would have aroused his attention and put him on his guard. 
 The exchange of observations between the young men, and the 
 observation of his cards, and so on, would have put him on his 
 guard. They exchanged their observations. The moment 
 they had exchanged their observations, these two friends who 
 had been young men friends together for four or five years, 
 one says, " This fellow next to me is cheating," and the other 
 says, " It is impossible," and so on. The next time he looks, 
 and he makes up his mind directly it is an act of dishonesty, 
 and when he is asked, " How came you, with a gentleman of 
 this character and position, to make up your mind it was dis- 
 honest, and that if there was anything wrong it might not have 
 been an accident? " when he is asked how came you to do it 
 I have read you his answer, " I had been told he was cheating." 
 Now just let me ask your attention to this : suppose, as I 
 suggest to you, Mr. Berkeley Levett is right, and I believe him 
 to be right in his statement of the fact certainly, that he did see 
 a ^5 counter upon the paper, and that when he looked a 
 second time there were three ^5 counters upon the paper, that 
 would be natural, for according to this system of the coup de 
 trois there would be first one counter, and then for the next 
 coup there would be three counters left making ,15, and sup- 
 pose he won that ^15 he might or might not go on to the ^30 
 stake, but then he would come back to the ^5 stake, because, as 
 I pointed out to you, if he went on doubling, of course a 
 moment must come when he must lose everything, and the only 
 chance of winning is to take two or three coups that run in
 
 200 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 succession, and then go back to your original stake. Mr. 
 Berkeley Levett told you that two or three coups afterwards he 
 had got back to his original stake of ,5 ; but he says that two 
 or three coups afterwards when the banker declared he had one 
 more counter, " I saw the $ counter on the table," and he 
 says, "he was paid io." The paper would be partially con- 
 cealed, but only from the person sitting next to him. Now all 
 these witnesses are uncertain as to who paid the money and in 
 what counters the money was paid, and it is precisely what 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming would do if he won $. Sup- 
 posing he had had $ on and he had won ^5, the croupier 
 had seen it, the banker had seen it, there was no occasion 
 for him to say any more about it, he puts down another 
 ^5 counter, and the ^5 counter coming from the 
 croupier makes the ^15. Here again I beg you to observe it 
 is impossible to suggest that there is anything which might 
 not be reasonably and fairly and honestly explaine^ by the 
 system of the coup de trots which was being played by Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming on that occasion. I agree there is 
 one incident alleged on the 8th, which this will not explain ; 
 Mr. Stanley Wilson says there was 5 upon the paper, and 
 that with a pencil Sir William Gordon-Gumming pushed a 2 
 counter on to the paper. Gentlemen, everybody could have 
 seen it if it was done. Mr. Berkeley Levett at that time was 
 looking, and had been warned, and was noticing what was done, 
 and he never saw it at all ; and when one suggests that upon 
 such a cloth, as has been described, a tapestry cloth, you can 
 push a counter on to the top of a piece of paper that is lying on 
 the table, I do not know whether you, gentlemen, have tried it 
 or not, but it is a thing which might be done perhaps once in a 
 few times, but if it were done it would certainly, as I submit to 
 you, attract attention. Just observe what this suggestion is 
 with regard to this 8th. You know that this gentleman, until 
 he had the misfortune to sit down at the card-table with Stanley 
 Wilson, was absolutely unimpeached in his honour ; you know 
 that he had been living in society where he would have been 
 daily under the observation and notice of keen eyes and very 
 strict judgments ; he had been playing cards at tables at which 
 his Royal Highness had been ; he had been accepted by his 
 Royal Highness as a friend for years, he had been playing 
 cards at the mess-table of his own regiment and wherever he 
 went, and whenever he went out in society. Not one whisper 
 against him ; so absolutely clear and spotless a character that 
 these men are shocked and distressed at the idea that against 
 such a man such an accusation should be brought, that in one 
 night, for the sake of money he did not want to be a winner of, 
 from a man for whom he felt, as he showed in his actions of
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 201 
 
 that night, that he had a sincere and loyal attachment to 
 cheat that man you are asked to suppose he condescends to all 
 the petty trickeries of the Continental card-sharper, and that he 
 is experienced in all the sleight-of-hand that can deceive the 
 men, used to play, who are sitting around. That is the first 
 night. As to what was noticed on the second night I do not 
 wonder at anything being said when we know what happened 
 before. Mr. Stanley Wilson and Mr. Berkeley Levett, big with 
 their great secret, go up and discuss this matter in their bed- 
 room. "Sir William Gordon-Gumming, Bart., cheating at 
 cards! Dear old chappie, what is to be done?" " My God, 
 what are we to do?" and all the rest of it, and these two boys 
 have come to the conclusion, I do not doubt honestly God 
 forbid I should say a word that to the end of their lives would 
 be remembered by them as having been a suggestion that they 
 were saying what they knew to be untrue but here these two 
 think they have seen this gentleman cheating at cards. W T ell 
 what do they do ? I do not stop to trouble over the details of 
 the preparations of the baccarat table for the second night, 
 though it is certainly very curious that until Mrs. Wilson came 
 into the box we had been told by witness after witness that that 
 baccarat table on the second night was arranged in order to 
 prevent any cheating, or to make it impossible that there should 
 be any cheating; and when Mrs. Wilson comes into the box she 
 gives an entirely new description of the whole matter and tells 
 you that His Royal Highness had suggested it in the course of 
 the evening before there was any idea of cheating. But, gentle- 
 men, that is a trivial matter and I have not time to deal with 
 trivial matters with you. I am anxious to keep your minds fixed 
 on the real matters that go to the root of this case. But what 
 did these people do before the baccarat commenced ? They 
 talked about it to everybody who was not entitled to hear it at 
 all. They kept it back scrupulously from the man to whom 
 they ought to have gone first. If Mr. Stanley Wilson had any 
 idea of filial duty and an English gentleman's honour, he would 
 have gone straight to his father and said, " Sir, under your roof 
 I have seen this, it is now for you to take such steps as you 
 may think right with regard to it," and put it in his father's 
 hands. That father is a man of honour and reputation, and of 
 ripe age to consider these matters, but instead of his being 
 allowed to know anything about it, why, of all the hardships 
 that have been done to people in this case, and the hardship 
 that my client has suffered is bitter indeed I confess I think 
 perhaps the worst hardship is that of Mr. Wilson, who was ex- 
 cluded from the knowledge of all this ; for they do not tell him, 
 but they determine to seek a ripe and experienced counsellor 
 after I beg pardon telling Mrs, Wilson, whose husband came
 
 2o THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 up so late to bed that she could not tell him that night, and who 
 did not want to trouble him when she saw him in the morning ; 
 but they seek an experienced counsellor, a man of the ripe age 
 of, I think, thirty-one, or something of that kind Mr. Lycett 
 Green whose capacity is that of a Master of Hounds who 
 hunts four days a week, and Mr. Lycett Green promptly takes 
 it up ; he feels that the whole reputation of the family has been 
 committed to him ; and instead of going to Mr. Wilson, who 
 was entitled to know, he goes and tells his father, who was not 
 entitled to know at all, a member of Parliament it is true, but 
 there are members of Parliament whose advice one would not 
 desire to ask in matters of this kind he goes and tells his 
 father, takes his father's advice, and then for the most foolish of 
 all reasons he tells his wife. Why should he tell Mrs. Lycett 
 Green ? He says proudly in the witness-box that he has no 
 secrets from his wife ; and he went and told his wife, Mrs. Lycett 
 Green, the daughter of the house, that Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming was accused of cheating at cards. He had no sort of 
 right to tell her, and to set about, to her, and through her, the 
 story on this occasion. But they had the most charming family 
 party that ever was known. The Wilsons are told, Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett is told, Jack Wilson tells Lycett Green and Mrs. Wilson, 
 his mother, Mr. Lycett Green tells Mrs. Lycett Green, and there 
 are five of them all agog to know whether Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming will or will not cheat the following night. They have 
 a baccarat table prepared ; there is not the slightest doubt as 
 to several of them that they thought it was prepared for the 
 purpose of preventing Sir William Gordon-Gumming from 
 cheating, and having this table prepared arrange themselves to 
 sit down to play baccarat with the cheat who in their belief had 
 been discovered. Observe it was not a question of surmise, 
 impression, or suspicion at the time, because Mr. Stanley Wilson 
 says he would stake his life upon it that he had seen cheating. 
 He told his mother, who has given him a certificate in court, 
 and says that she never had the least cause to distrust his word, 
 and so believed him. Mr. Lycett Green tells his wife, who of 
 course believed him ; and then the baccarat table is prepared, 
 and they go on. But in order apparently that there should be 
 no risk of forgetfulness on the part of Mrs. Wilson, her son tells 
 her in the drawing-room before they pass from the drawing- 
 room into the place where they are going to play baccarat : " It 
 will be all right to-night because we have got a baccarat table 
 with a chalk line on it," and Mrs. Wilson has the audacity to 
 tell you that she went in and sat down at that baccarat table 
 and forgot all about it, and my friend, Sir Charles Russell, with 
 a grave face, repeats it. There is a very interesting incident in 
 this case which refers to this. Do you remember the sym-
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 203 
 
 pathetic manner in which Mrs. Arthur Wilson was introduced 
 to you, and the way in which she gave her evidence ; how that 
 she had known Sir William Gordon-Gumming, that she was 
 greatly attached to a relative of his ? Well, gentlemen, I have 
 no reason to suggest that there is not a very dear relative who 
 has, up to recently at all events, entertained the acquaintance of 
 Mrs. Wilson, but do you think that if that relative of Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming was so dear to her as she desired to represent 
 in the witness-box, that she would have gone and sat down at a 
 table at which the brother was sitting, knowing that that brother 
 had been charged, or suggested to have cheated at cards the 
 night before, and that for half an hour it should have passed 
 altogether from her mind? Gentlemen, it is an intolerable 
 suggestion. It could not be. The moment she looked at Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming she must have remembered that her 
 son had told her that he had been detected cheating at cards. 
 According to her account she must have had called to her mind 
 the affectionate friendship with the near relative of his whom 
 she so dearly loved, and when she looks at him she must be 
 reminded of the relative she is so fond of, and she absolutely 
 forgets not only that twenty-four hours ago she was told he had 
 cheated at cards, but that just before she came into that room 
 her son had come to her and whispered it was all right because 
 he could not cheat to-night as there was a chalk line on the 
 table. Is it not ridiculous? I say one cannot accept such a 
 story. Surely no jury can accept it for a moment against the 
 witness of an honourable life. Now, the second night they sit 
 down. This time there is a table all on one level. It appears, 
 by some accident, that all the people who know that Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming has been accused of cheating are sitting very 
 near him. You are told that that was an accident. You are 
 told that two chairs were left vacant, which happened to put 
 him next to Mrs. Lycett Green. If he had taken the other he 
 would have been at another part of the same family party, but 
 still close to them. Sitting immediately opposite to them is 
 Mr. Berkeley Levett within three feet. When I first heard 
 that dimension mentioned I thought it must be a mistake, 
 that you could not have got a table so narrow as three feet to 
 play at, but it is so the table has been measured, and therefore 
 within a distance as near as that [describing] you have Mr. 
 Berkeley Levett sitting opposite to Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming during an hour and a half of baccarat play, and 
 he saw nothing wrong whatever in his play and says : " I 
 looked away and did not observe." Curious behaviour for an 
 officer of the Scots Guards to sit down immediately opposite 
 the Lieutenant-Colonel of that corps, knowing that that Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel was alleged to have been cheating, and as
 
 204 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 he says himself, knowing that he had been cheating the night 
 before, knowing that there were sitting at that table four per- 
 sons at least to whom the secret had been confided, and that at 
 any moment any one of those persons might put his hand down 
 on the table and say, " That was not the stake you had there 
 when the cards were dealt." I do not envy Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett's feelings during that hour and a half. It is a pity he 
 had not the felicity of Mrs. Arthur Wilson, who succeeded in for- 
 getting it altogether. But what goes on ? Now, there is a 
 most interesting event, and the Master of the Hounds comes on 
 the scene. Mr. Lycett Green was the person who had said he 
 was going to watch. Now, there is no doubt about this at all. 
 This is in Lord Coventry's diary, written the next day it is not 
 a question of even twenty-four hours' interval that Mr. Lycett 
 Green said he was going to watch, and that if they found him 
 cheating they would denounce him. Quite right. That was the 
 proper attitude. It is at the card-table, and nowhere else, that 
 the cheating at cards should be denounced and pointed out. To 
 save up an accusation like that, to be in friendship with a man 
 you are going to accuse, and then to bring the accusation 
 against him in circumstances which would make it impossible 
 for him to say anything but "In the name of God, I am not 
 guilty " that is not the conduct of an honourable man, and it 
 never has been ; but Mr. Lycett Green is the Master of Hounds, 
 and hunts four days a week. That is sufficient occupation for 
 him, and he being thirty years of age, is the man who is chosen 
 to represent these young men, and he goes with the fullest in- 
 tention that if he sees Sir William Gordon-Gumming cheating 
 he will denounce him. Now, gentlemen, what happened? He 
 says that he saw Sir William Gordon-Gumming push a blue 
 counter over the line, and that it aroused his suspicions ; but 
 nobody else of all the five suggests that ever they saw a blue 
 counter pushed over the line. That stands on Mr. Lycett Green's 
 evidence alone, and it is quite clear that Mr. Lycett Green did not 
 think that he had then detected an act of cheating, because he 
 had made up his mind to act promptly and vigorously whenever 
 the act of cheating was detected ; and so the next thing that 
 occurs is the incident which undoubtedly did occur, the ask- 
 ing for the ;io more. I beg you to note the circumstances 
 of this. It is the only incident to which there is more than one 
 witness the only incident and there are three. What was the 
 incident ? Sir William Gordon-Gumming had a ^5 counter 
 staked, Mr. Arthur Wilson tells you. I do not know that it was 
 on paper. For the moment I pass away from that. The 
 $ counter was on the table four inches beyond the line ; then 
 the 10 counter, the brown counter, was pushed, he says, just 
 over the line ; whereas Mr. Lycett Green, speaking of the same
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 205 
 
 incident, says just on the line, but well away from the $ 
 counter. Then the banker loses and has to pay, and Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming says, "There is another 10, sir, 
 to come here." That is to the Prince of Wales, upon which the 
 Prince says, " Give him another tenner, Owen " (speaking to 
 General Owen Williams), and " I wish you would put your 
 counters so that they can be seen better," or something of that 
 kind " in a more conspicuous place," or some observation of 
 that kind. The moment Mr. Lycett Green heard that said by 
 his Royal Highness, his loyal heart was quite satisfied that 
 there was something wrong. He jumped up from the table, and 
 went away from the table ; he felt that he had seen an act of 
 cheating, and what was the course he took ? This Master of 
 Hounds knew what ought to be done. He knew that if you 
 think a man is going to cheat, and you find him out at cheat- 
 ing, that then and there, on the spot, at any cost, you should 
 make the accusation, or ever thereafter hold your peace about 
 it ; and so he had told Lord Coventry that if they found him out 
 they would denounce him. He jumped up, full of valiant reso- 
 lution, and he changed his mind. He went away, and wrote 
 to his mother-in-law ! Gentlemen, it is not my fault, and it is 
 not my wish, if the putting of these things in their close relation- 
 ship appears a laughing matter. It is no laughing matter to the 
 man I am defending here in this court ; but it is ridiculous to 
 talk of evidence of people like this as evidence upon which a 
 life is to be ruined and a reputation wrecked. He gets up and 
 he goes into another room, writes the note, and sends it to Mrs. 
 Wilson. Do you remember that odd little incident that occurred 
 when my learned friend, Sir Charles Russell, was describing to 
 you Mr. Lycett Geeen's conscientious and high-minded conduct ? 
 Said my learned friend, in the most magnificent tones of ele- 
 vated morality which he could use : " Mr. Green saw this. He 
 got up from the table ; he would not play again. He did not 
 sit down to play ; " and my learned friends behind began tugging 
 at his gown, and told him he was making a mistake, and he 
 said, " Well, well, he did sit down, and played for the rest of the 
 evening." And, gentlemen, Mr. Lycett Green comes back to 
 that room again, sits down at that table with the man he called 
 a scoundrel in the letter he wrote to his mother-in-law, and goes 
 on peacefully playing during the rest of the evening this Master 
 of Hounds and bottles up the accusation until the night after 
 the Leger, when probably he felt a little more valiant, and he 
 thought he might make it and stick to it, and ask to be secured 
 against an action, if Sir William Gordon-Gumming threatened one. 
 Going through the incidents of the two nights, I have now 
 come to the evidence of Mrs. Lycett Green, who speaks as to 
 the 10. " Owen give him ^10 more," and so on, and the sor 1 -
 
 206 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 of thing that if it had occurred would have checked any inclina- 
 tion to cheat, supposing there had been any such inclination, 
 and would have shown that the man -was likely to be found out. 
 One of the witnesses, Mr. Lycett Green, represents Sir William 
 Gordon-Gumming for to that picturesque and complete state 
 the evidence has come looking round to see whether people 
 were noticing him before he put a counter over the line. If Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming had been cheating,. and deliberately 
 cheating, these whisperings of Mr. Stanley Wilson and Mr. 
 Berkeley Levett on the first night, the getting up from the 
 table of one of the players, and the sending the note in by the 
 butler to the hostess, could not have escaped his attention, and 
 must have checked it. Nor is it conceivable that if he had been 
 cheating he would have called upon His Royal Highness to pay 
 an extra 10, knowing that he dishonestly pushed that ^10 
 counter forward and only put it at a place where its position 
 would attract attention and comment. But, gentlemen, after 
 this what happens ? This letter had been sent to Mrs. Wilson ; 
 and now just that happens which you might expect. Up to that 
 moment, on neither night, had Mrs. Wilson seen any cheating 
 at all, but when Mr. Lycett Green wrote her a letter, and said 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming was a scoundrel and was cheat- 
 ing, she saw it at once, and saw it in such a manner that 
 it .is perfectly ridiculous to read the evidence, or to hear the 
 evidence, which she gave on Friday. Mrs. Wilson was farther 
 off from Sir William Gordon-Gumming than the Prince of 
 Wales, General Owen Williams, Lord Edward Somerset, Captain 
 Somerset, Mr. Berkeley Levett, and Lady Coventry, certainly 
 she was certainly farther off than all of these, and she says that 
 she saw a 10 counter on one occasion dropped, and a \o 
 counter on another occasion pushed so openly over the line that 
 she wondered the others did not see it. She might well 
 wonder the others did not see it. There were three of 
 them looking for it, Mr. Lycett Green, Mrs. Lycett Green, and 
 Mr. Stanley Wilson, and neither of them saw it. But more 
 than that, you heard Mrs. Wilson's evidence on Friday. At that 
 time Lady Coventry was handling the cards. Lady Coventry's 
 hand had attracted the attention of the whole party. She was 
 having a special run of good fortune, and, as I should have 
 expected of Lady Coventry, only playing for small and trifling 
 stakes a few shillings, using these smaller class of counters 
 not gambling. She was being assisted with her cards by Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming. To that point, her cards and the 
 place where those cards were being placed, the eyes of all the 
 tableau were directed, for two reasons, not only because upon 
 the success of Lady Coventry's cards their success depended, 
 but because of all the players who were playing at that tableau,
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 207 
 
 Sir William Gordon-Gumming was playing highest. He was 
 putting the largest stakes, and so the attention of the whole 
 tableau was directed to Lady Coventry's cards, and Sir William 
 Gordon-Cumming's stakes, and it is only Mrs. Wilson, who has 
 had a letter from her son-in-law, who sees him openly pushing 
 the counters over the chalk line. 
 
 Gentlemen, I have gone through the evidence of these two 
 nights. I have ppinted out to you that, so far from being the 
 cumulative evidence of five witnesses, except for one incident, 
 and that is the asking for the extra ^10, which, if it had involved 
 him in suspicion of dishonesty would have brought that suspicion 
 to the mind of his Royal Highness, and of General Owen 
 Williams with the exception of that incident there is only one 
 person to speak to either of these two different occasions, and 
 you are asked to believe on their evidence that with all the 
 resources and cleverness of a conjurer, Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming is manipulating the counters, and flicking them, or 
 pushing them, or dropping them, or withdrawing them, and that 
 he is doing all this with such remarkable and discriminating 
 skill that he can be seen by everybody who expected to see 
 him, and by nobody else. That is the case that is put before 
 you. Gentlemen, there is much detail, and there has been 
 much detail as to other matters, and as to what was seen. 
 The only way of testing witnesses like these is to ask 
 them what they know about other things. You will see 
 at once that an accusation like this made against a gentle- 
 man he cannot answer it except by saying, " I did not 
 do it," If he were playing honestly there is no coup 
 out of the whole series that would attract his particular 
 attention, and the only possible way of testing and gauging the 
 evidence of people who come to make charges like this is by 
 asking them to tell what else was happening, and to give 
 particulars as to other things. Gentlemen, it is a most re- 
 markable thing, and I dare say you noticed my asking the 
 question, that when Mr. Berkeley Levett and the other witnesses 
 were speaking about this $ coup and the ^15 being received, 
 I asked, I think in every case I meant to in every case 
 " What did he stake the next time ? " and they could never tell 
 me. " What did he stake the time before ?" They could not 
 tell me on any one occasion, and though, if these people were 
 right, their attention must have been riveted to the table, and 
 they would have watched, one would think, what happened 
 immediately afterwards, there is not one of them who can tell 
 me what he staked before or what he staked afterwards, though 
 the answer to that would show you at once that he was playing 
 upon the system which has been described to you by Stanley 
 Wilson, and, before we knew it was important, was described
 
 2o8 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 by Sir William Gordon-Gumming himself. Take an instance 
 of their not being able to say what happened. My learned 
 friend cross-examined Mr. Lycett Green as to the state of 
 things on that evening with regard to which one would have 
 thought the recollection, even of a Master of Hounds, would 
 be clear. He is asked this : 
 
 " Q. Had Sir William Gordon-Gumming a piece of paper 
 before him ? A. I cannot say. 
 
 " Q- Was he using a pencil ? A. I cannot say. 
 
 " Q,' Was he smoking? A. I do not know. 
 
 " Q. Had he a tumbler in front of him? A. I cannot say." 
 
 And the moment you get them off the particular point which 
 was in their minds, and which they went to look for some- 
 thing which would indicate the cheating the moment you get off 
 that, they are all astray, and can tell you nothing at all about it. 
 
 Now, gentlemen, I have seriously addressed myself to the 
 analysis and discussion of the evidence, for this reason. If, as 
 I hope and trust, you give a verdict for Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming in this case, it shall not, if I can help it, ever be said 
 that that verdict was got from you by an appeal to your sym- 
 pathies or to your pity. 
 
 Other persons outside this court are interested in this case. 
 Other persons besides those of his own family look with the 
 keenest eyes upon that which has been said from beginning to 
 end of this case, and I want them to be able to say by-and-bye, 
 when they speak of the incidents of this trial, that his counsel 
 was not content to beg from the pity or the sympathy of the 
 jury a verdict of acquittal for a gallant soldier, but that he 
 showed the jury by argument and analysis addressed to the 
 evidence before them that there was no evidence upon which 
 they could convict a gentleman of such an offence. 
 
 Now I pass from the analysis of this part of the evidence. 
 It has taken me longer than I expected to have to spend upon 
 it, but I must come to another subject. I have dealt with the 
 evidence as to facts. The next part of my learned friend's 
 argument was : " He must be guilty because his friends, the 
 Prince, General Owen Williams, and Lord Coventry, thought 
 that the evidence was overwhelming," and, as I told you I 
 should, I now come back to this question of belief in the 
 accusation. Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams have 
 distinctly said that they believed in the accusation that was 
 made against him. With regard to his Royal Highness, I 
 would ask you to observe the careful terms in which his Royal 
 Highness answered the question which one of your number put 
 to him. Two questions were asked by one of your number ; 
 and the second question was an important one, as to whether 
 his Royal Highness believed in this accusation, and I think
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINtlFF log 
 
 you noticed that his Royal Highness, with an expressive 
 movement of the shoulders, said : " They seemed so strongly 
 supported unanimously so by those who brought them for- 
 ward, that I felt that no other course was open to me but to 
 believe what I was told." Now, those were the exact words of 
 the answer, and I do not doubt that his Royal Highness had 
 the impression upon his mind that he had been, when he dealt 
 with this accusation, in possession of the evidence of five 
 witnesses. But, gentlemen, he had nothing of the kind. The 
 unanimous story of the five witnesses was nothing but the state- 
 ment of Mr. Lycett Green, supported by answers to questions 
 of his Royal Highness to Mr. Stanley Wilson, and by one 
 answer of a most remarkable character from Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett. Let me get rid of Mr. Berkeley Levett, for he, at all 
 events, was one of the persons stated as being one of the 
 witnesses on whose authority his Royal Highness at that 
 moment felt compelled to accept the truth of the accusation 
 against his friend. What happened with Mr. Berkeley Levett? 
 We have heard from Mr. Berkeley Levett that his Royal 
 Highness had listened to the statement of Mr. Lycett Green 
 he had asked questions of Mr. Stanley Wilson as to the details 
 of that statement, and then he turned to Mr. Berkeley Levett 
 and said, " I believe you saw it too?" upon which Mr. Berkeley 
 Levett said, " Well, it is a painful thing for me " (or some words 
 of that sort), " because he is an officer of my regiment, but I 
 did" but that was all that Mr. Berkeley Levett said to any- 
 body, and the details of the accusation were not mentioned. 
 The circumstances under which Mr. Berkeley Levett had 
 seen it were not mentioned, and it is impossible to say 
 whether the question was asked, a most important question, 
 " Had your mind been put on the idea of cheating before 
 you saw it?" It is impossible to say. All the evidence that 
 was before them this which is called overwhelming evidence 
 was the evidence of Mr. Lycett Green, supported, as I say, by 
 the answers of Mr. Stanley Wilson, and by the only statement, 
 as far as the Prince was concerned, from Mr. Berkeley Levett ; 
 and (it is amazing to think of it) General Owen Williams and 
 Lord Coventry before they go to Sir William Gordon-Cumming 
 have made up their minds what would be the best thing to do. 
 I do not say that they had decided finally upon the course that 
 they should adopt, but before they saw Sir William Gordon- 
 Cumming they had suggested one to the other, " Let us have a 
 promise not to play cards again, and a promise of secrecy, and 
 then it will be all at an end." How Lord Coventry and 
 General Owen Williams ever persuaded themselves that they 
 could honourably adopt that course I cannot see. This man 
 had been their friend for years, he had been the comrade of 
 
 O
 
 210 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 General Owen Williams for thirty years ; they had been 
 together as soldiers ; they would have shared each other's 
 perils ; they would willingly have adventured life for each other 
 had they been together, they very likely have done so travelling 
 through the world ; but the moment this accusation is made 
 against him, made by people like this, meeting in this way, 
 evidenced by this fragmentary statement, supported only by the 
 confirmation of otherwise almost silent witnesses who agreed 
 with what was being said at that moment, before they ask him 
 whether there was any foundation for it or not, they suggest to 
 each other, " Suppose he signs a paper that he will not play 
 cards again, and then we get a promise from these people that 
 they will not take any further notice." Now that is the course 
 which they took. It is not for me to comment upon them 
 further. It is the most painful of duties to have to say as much 
 as I have had to say. To me it is most painful, and I will not 
 say a syllable more than I am compelled, but I cannot help 
 pressing upon you the course which was taken with regard to 
 Sir William Gordon-Cumming. If my learned friend, Sir 
 Charles Russell, had not made so strong a point of this, I should 
 have gladly abstained from commenting upon it, but he has 
 made it the very point and front of this case, and he has said to 
 you in your hearing, with indignant tones, " Is it possible that a 
 man of honour should sign that which he is told, and which he 
 knows, will be read and accepted as an acknowledgment of his 
 guilt, when he himself knows that he is innocent?" I retort the 
 question " Is it possible that men of honour, after twenty or 
 thirty years of friendship, applied to by their comrade to advise 
 him in the circumstances of the time could advise him to sign a 
 document which would condemn him, as they believe, if ever 
 the scandal comes to be discussed, a document which they have 
 already told his accuser, Mr. Lycett Green, will be a safeguard 
 and protection to him in case Sir William Gordon-Cumming 
 ever brings an action against him for the slander ? " I do not 
 understand it, and I cannot imagine the thoughts that must 
 have been in the minds of General Owen Williams and Lord 
 Coventiy. But this I know, there is one explanation I hinted 
 at in my opening speech, hinted at in terms so carefully chosen 
 that my learned friend might well have accepted them, and not 
 forced me to put it in a stronger way the reason was to save 
 the Prince of Wales. I suggested in my opening speech that it 
 was the idea of scandal attaching to the Prince of Wales that 
 had induced the signing of this document. My friend would 
 not have it. I put it as mildly as I possibly could, but my 
 friend would not have it, and he proceeded to cross-examine 
 Sir William Gordon-Cumming, and he of course obtained an 
 apparently easy triumph over me from his evidence. He said
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 211 
 
 to Sir William Gordon-Gumming, " Sir William, baccarat is an 
 innocent game ? Certainly. You do not see any scandal about 
 playing baccarat? None." Of course not; he was playing 
 baccarat himself. He thinks, as a great many people think, 
 that there is no harm whatever in the playing of baccarat, and 
 in my opening speech I did say, and I keep to it, that I do not 
 see anything very serious in the way of reprobation which is to 
 be dealt out to those who, having ample means and ample 
 leisure, choose to enjoy themselves by games of this kind. 
 Gentlemen, I put it, and I do not want to get away from it, 
 although,, as I say, I put it in somewhat moderate language, 
 having regard to the other circumstances of the case, but my 
 friend would not have it. He insisted on it that there was no 
 scandal affecting His Royal Highness that the only possible 
 reason for their suggesting this to Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming was that they felt that he was gone, that the 
 evidence against him was so conclusive and overwhelming 
 that he never again under any circumstances could hold up 
 his head, and that it was in mercy to him that they sug- 
 gested this writing and this, settlement. My learned friend 
 would not admit that there was any question with regard to 
 His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. Now, let me quite 
 frankly say what I have- to say before I read what Lord Coventry 
 had to say about the matter. Sir William Gordon-Gumming 
 and those who share the society which he then enjoyed are en- 
 titled to choose their amusements, and they may not think that 
 there is scandal attaching to the playing of a game like this. But, 
 gentlemen, there are the great masses of our people whose 
 knowledge of gaming principally is that a club is visited and the 
 people prosecuted for playing baccarat there, or an innkeeper 
 loses his licence because betting on horses is allowed on his 
 premises ; and in a great part of the community of which we 
 are members there must be, I am sorrowful to think, a keen and 
 an abiding feeling that this unhappy incident ought never to 
 have been allowed to occur, because the circumstances were 
 those which are at variance with the feelings and the conscience 
 of the people. And Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams, 
 when they were thinking of this matter, what did they think 
 would be said if the scandal was over Doncaster racecourse the 
 next day ? They knew it would be said that at a country house 
 at Yorkshire, the master of which disapproved of the playing of 
 baccarat within its walls, that game had been played in the 
 circumstances which I forbear to detail, but which now are 
 familiar to you by the evidence in this case, and they thought, 
 and as I believe rightly thought, that they would do good service 
 to him whom they were bound to think of in circumstances of 
 this kind, if they took a course which would allow the whole
 
 212 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 matter to pass into oblivion. We cannot, perhaps, all of us 
 understand the feelings which they had at the time, but there is 
 a strong and subtle influence of royalty a personal influence 
 which has adorned our history with chivalrous deeds ; and has 
 perplexed the historian with unknightly and dishonouring deeds 
 done by men of character, and done by them because they gave 
 their honour as freely as they would have given their lives, to 
 save the interests of a dynasty or to conceal the foibles of a 
 prince. That is what was in the mind of Lord Coventry and 
 General Owen Williams. It is perhaps a generous and a loyal 
 feeling ; but, gentlemen, what has seemed to me during the 
 days of this trial the cruelty of the whole thing is this. We 
 know that was what was felt. There is no room for controversy 
 now. It does not rest on the speculation of an advocate, or the 
 inference from the ambiguous answer to a question. Here in 
 Lord Coventry's diary we find it, written the next day, contra- 
 dicting every syllable of the speech which, in ignorance of that 
 diary, my learned friend made when he was opening his case : 
 " We were induced to recommend this course because we 
 desired, if possible, to avoid the scandal which would naturally 
 attach to the publication of the circumstances, and to keep the 
 name of the Prince of Wales out of it ; and also out of con- 
 sideration for our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Wilson, who are 
 at this time in domestic affliction." Gentlemen, that closes the 
 controversy between my learned friend and myself as to the 
 reasons for which it was desired to keep this secret. But if we 
 are to think with approval or even with leniency of the conduct 
 of General Owen Williams and Lord Coventry in allowing their 
 old friend to take this course, which he is now denounced for as 
 a dishonouring act, is there not something to be said for the 
 sentiment of loyalty on the part of Sir William Gordon-Cum- 
 ming ? He knew as well as Lord Coventry, that the scandal 
 would be an unpleasant one. He knew it would cause pain to 
 the Prince whose kindly friendship he had enjoyed for so many 
 years. He owed much to the Prince of Wales. It is easy for a 
 prince to pick up friends one passes away there are plenty 
 ready to come if he will only accept them to his intimacy and 
 his confidence, and it is felt, and must be felt, to be an honour 
 to a man to be admitted to such intimacy and confidence. Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming had enjoyed it and was grateful for 
 it, was loyal to the Prince who had been so kind to him ; and if 
 Lord Coventry and General Owen Williams are to be approved 
 or excused when they advised their old comrade to sign the 
 paper which they knew doomed him to a life of suspicion and 
 of misery and of ultimate dishonour if they are to be approved 
 or excused for doing that, because of their devotion to the Prince 
 whom they desired to serve, let Sir William Gordon-Cumming
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 213 
 
 at least have this credit too, that he, protesting he was not 
 guilty, asking to be sent to his colonel, or the commander-in- 
 chief, for investigation, when the paper at last is brought to 
 him, and he is told that unless he signs it, he will next day be 
 denounced as a cheat, refusing then to sign it, as Lord Coventry 
 told you turning away he will not put his hand to the paper, 
 and at last he turns to them and says, " Coventry, you are an 
 old friend of mine. Owen Williams, we have been comrades 
 for years. Advise me what to do." They advise him to sign it. 
 Was there no loyalty to the Prince of Wales in the man who 
 sacrificed himself, as his old friends were willing to sacrifice 
 him, in order to save the reputation of one whose kindness 
 during those years, whatever may happen here, will always be 
 a recollection he is entitled to remember with pride ? Gentle- 
 men, he has been taunted by my learned friend ; it has been 
 said that his conduct in signing this must condemn him, and you 
 have been asked, in those tones whose power I for one am able 
 to appreciate, to say that after the signing of that dishonouring 
 document, for that is my friend's own word, there is no room, 
 for controversy that the book is closed, the account made up, 
 the evidence concluded, and that the signing of that document 
 condemns him for all time. Just think, gentlemen, the mind 
 they must have been in who suggested his signing that document. 
 My friend, to my amazement, when I had spoken about the 
 disturbing hospitality of Tranby Croft, turned to me and asked 
 if I suggested that Sir William Gordon-Gumming was drunk 
 on that night of the loth. Well, gentlemen, the brief insanity 
 of drink would be perhaps an easy explanation. I give no such 
 explanation. The Prince of Wales, General Owen Williams, 
 and Lord Coventry, were all parties with him to the signing of 
 that document, and to the terms which were embodied in it. 
 What did they think ? Did they think that this was going to be 
 kept a secret ? They say they did. If you believe them, you 
 accept their veracity at the expense of their good sense. Who 
 could have imagined it would be kept secret ? Why, the next 
 day, on Doncaster racecourse, the party from Tranby Croft 
 appeared, and Sir William Gordon-Gumming was not with them. 
 The question is asked at once, " Where is Sir William Gordon- 
 Gumming ? " " Oh, he went to town this morning ; " told to men 
 with whom probably he had made arrangements as to meeting 
 them, as to the transaction of pleasure or of business upon the 
 racecourse ; and then there is, as you know, the " pronouncing 
 of some doubtful phrase, as ' Well, we know,' or ' We could an if 
 we would,' or ' If we list to speak,' or 'There be an if they 
 might,' or such ambiguous giving out," as leaves the stigma on 
 his character. And here again he is not to go to Mar. He 
 has been the friend of the Duke of Fife, and has an engage-
 
 2I4 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 ment to visit there, and he has to send an excuse not to come. 
 What questions would be asked then? Or, again, the next 
 time he goes to take his place at the mess. He goes to take 
 his place at the mess as an honourable man, with the consent 
 and the concurrence of the Prince of Wales, and General Owen 
 Williams, and Lord Coventry. The mess breaks up, the whist 
 table is there, and instead of sitting down as usual he says he is 
 not going to play, and he must make some excuse ; and Lord 
 Coventry, to whom, of all men in English society, perhaps, one 
 might fairly have thought one could appeal as a man of 
 sense as well as a man of honour in difficulties of this kind, 
 says, " I never thought it would come out, and as to what was 
 to happen if it were talked about, I never thought about it at 
 all." Why, of course that happened which anybody could 
 have foreseen, it became known. Now is it true that he 
 tried to slip out of the army with half-pay, without an 
 investigation? It has been negatived by the evidence. 
 The first person, according to the evidence, who sug- 
 gested submitting this matter to the Commander-in-Chief, or 
 the commanding-officer, was Sir William Gordon-Gumming. 
 He suggested it, they say, in his Royal Highness's presence, 
 and nothing was said in answer to that suggestion by his Royal 
 Highness. Afterwards, in the agony of the necessity of finally 
 deciding if he will put his hand to that document or not, he 
 refuses to sign it, and says again, " I want the case put before 
 the Commander-in Chief," and then General Owen Williams 
 says, " I was nettled at the suggestion." General Owen Williams 
 positively resented the suggestion that the matter should be 
 put before the Commander-in-Chief, and so the unhappy and 
 ill-advised soldier goes his way, and hopes against hope that 
 nothing more will be heard of it. He is living in the misery of 
 knowing that while the scandal affecting the Prince has by his 
 self-sacrifice been for the time avoided, he has left in the hands 
 of somebody else a paper which no one will ever hereafter see, 
 if it be brought to light, without believing that he acknowledged 
 himself a cheat. During those months of misery he tried to live 
 his usual life, and then he found that it was beginning to be 
 known, and he was the first person who went to the military 
 authorities, and on the 2$th of January put the matter before 
 Colonel Stracey. My learned friend talks about trying to slip 
 out of the army with half-pay. If, when the matter had recently 
 taken place, in September, October, November, or December, 
 he had sent in his papers and asked to retire on half-pay and 
 said no more, he probably could have done so and secured his 
 honourable retirement from her Majesty's service, but when he 
 had once told Colonel Stracey what had taken place he made it 
 impossible for him to retire upon half-pay without an jnvcstiga-
 
 REPLY FOR THE PLAINTIFF 215 
 
 tion. That once said (and it was the first time Colonel Stracey 
 had heard of it), Colonel Stracey himself could not allow an 
 officer to retire upon half-pay without informing the authorities 
 of the army that against that officer a dreadful and serious 
 accusation had been brought. So, on the 2 5th of January, at 
 the very moment that he went to Colonel Stracey with regard 
 to the retirement from the army, sending in his papers as the 
 natural accompaniment of telling Colonel Stracey what had 
 taken place ; an event which he knew must be followed by a 
 military inquiry ; when he went on that day he put it absolutely 
 out of his own power out of hope by his own action that he 
 should be allowed to retire on half-pay. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : He applied to retire. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : Yes, on that day, telling Colonel 
 Stracey. 
 
 The LORD CHIEF JUSTICE : He applied at the same time to 
 retire on half-pay. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : Yes ; " simultaneously " was the 
 word he used. He applied to retire on half-pay, but instead of 
 trying to slip out of the army before Colonel Stracey had heard 
 of it, and getting his retirement on half-pay, and then the 
 matter being heard of when it was too late to investigate it, he 
 told Colonel Stracey at the same time, and so made it inevitable 
 that an inquiry should take place before he was allowed to 
 retire on half-pay. Now, observe what happens the next day. 
 Up to that date the 25th of January he had no knowledge of 
 what had been said against him at all. He had asked Lord 
 Coventry, " What do they say ? " and Lord Coventry did not 
 know any detail, and could not have told him. He had 
 asked Lord Coventry the name of his accusers, and he had 
 been told of Mr. Lycett Green and Arthur Stanley Wilson, and 
 Lord Coventry does not know he had been told any other 
 name, but on the 26th he went to the friends by whose advice 
 he had signed the paper ; he saw them in the morning ; it 
 was arranged they were to get the paper and see him in 
 the afternoon ; he came back in the afternoon ; he read 
 the/;rV/.$v he took objection to that part of it which was indi- 
 cated by Lord Coventry, and he then said to them, " What do 
 you advise ? " They had no advice to give him. Their views 
 had been bound and closed up by the idea of this never coming 
 out at all. They had treated him as a friend afterwards. They 
 had shaken hands with him after he had signed what they called 
 a dishonouring document. They had met him at the clubs ; 
 General Owen Williams had written to him, " My dear Bill ;" 
 Lord Coventry' had written to him, " Dear Sir William," and 
 " Yours truly, Coventry," after this time ; and then, on the 26th, 
 when they are face to face with that which they should always
 
 216 THE BACCARAT CASE 
 
 have foreseen, their capacity for advice is gone. They have no 
 advice to give him at all. Gentlemen, he took his own course. 
 It is for you to vindicate that course by the verdict which you 
 give in this case. He determined upon a public examination of 
 these facts. He applied for a copy of the record. Until he got 
 a copy of the record he could not tell who had actually made 
 the statement against him. On the 5th of February he got a 
 copy of the record, and on the 6th of February a writ was issued 
 against every person mentioned in it as having made a statement 
 to his discredit. By every means that we have known this trial 
 has been hastened, in order that he should be able to come into 
 court to vindicate himself, and when the trial is called on he goes 
 into the witness-box first, to face that cross-examination which 
 has terrors for men who have shameful secrets to conceal, or a 
 disgraceful past to reveal to the world, but has no terrors for a 
 man who could come into this or any court, and face any cross- 
 examination which envy or malice could suggest, knowing that 
 " whatever record leapt to light, he never should be shamed." 
 So he gave his statement and his evidence before you, and 
 it is for you to decide upon it. I ask you, in his name, to clear 
 him of the charge. It is too late to undo much of the mischief 
 which, however this case was treated, could not but arise from 
 this discussion. It may be too late to save the reputation 
 of some of those who have been mentioned in the case ; it is 
 not too late for you to prevent the completion of the sacrifice 
 of a gallant officer to the desire to keep a 'painful secret quiet. 
 The motto of his race is "Without fear." He came without 
 fear into the witness-box, for he had nothing to conceal. He 
 sits without fear at this moment, for he believes, as I believe, 
 that honesty is safe in the hands of a British jury, and that he 
 has good reason to hope that the result will happen, which 
 I believe will not be unwelcome to some of those upon 
 whom I have been obliged to make sharp comments that 
 result which will assure the Prince, General Owen Williams, and 
 Lord Coventry, that they made an honest but a sad mistake 
 that the man they had known and honoured was worthy of their 
 friendship and their esteem a result which will wipe a stain 
 from a noble service and a gallant regiment, and will send Sir 
 William Gordon-Gumming back, with that title-deed in his hand 
 to public service and private friendship, which will be written in 
 the verdict given by you that clears him of this foul charge.
 
 ALLCARD v. SKINNER. 
 
 THIS was an action in which a lady who had for some years 
 been a member of an Anglican sisterhood, sought to re- 
 cover the moneys which, during that period, she had given 
 to the mother-superior for the purposes of the sisterhood. 
 The case was heard by Mr. Justice Kekewich in the High 
 Court of Justice (Chancery Division), on the aoth, 2ist, 
 22nd, 24th and 25th days of January, 1887. Sir Charles 
 Russell, OC., M.P., Mr. R. B. Finlay, Q C., M.P., and Mr. 
 Francis B. Palmer, appeared for the plaintiff. The 
 Solicitor-General (Sir Edward Clarke, Q.C., M.P.), Mr. 
 Warmington, Q.C., M.P., and Mr. Edward Ford, appeared 
 for the defendant. Judgment was given for the defendant, 
 with costs, and was affirmed in the Court of Appeal. 
 
 The following speech was delivered on behalf of the defendant 
 by the Solicitor-General : 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : My lord, it is now my duty to 
 address you on the whole of this case, and the facts that have 
 been proved in the course of the evidence, and also to make 
 some observations upon the principles of law as administered 
 by the Courts of Equity, which as I conceive apply, and must 
 be applied, to this case. I do not profess or claim that absolute 
 ignorance of equity doctrines which my learned friend, Mr. 
 Finlay, was good enough to attribute to some of his common 
 law friends ; but I am content to say that I am not so familiar 
 as one who had habitually practised in the Courts of Equity 
 might be with the principles and the application made of 
 them. 
 
 I am, however, comforted with the knowledge that out of the 
 four Queen's Counsel whom your lordship sees engaged in the 
 case, I have at my right hand supporting me, the only one who 
 is familiar with the practice and doctrines of the Courts of 
 Equity ; and my learned friend, Mr. Warmington, will address
 
 218 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 himself when I have finished to some questions arising upon the 
 cases which have been quoted by my friends, or which may be 
 applicable to this case. So far as I am concerned, although I 
 shall feel it to be my duty to comment upon one or two cases, 
 and to call your lordship's attention to the limitation of the 
 principles laid down in those cases, yet still I shall not attempt 
 to deal with that matter in detail, but shall only refer to it as I 
 deal with the facts, and point out to your lordship what, in my 
 contention, is the bearing of the rules of equity upon the facts 
 before your lordship. 
 
 I think it would be convenient to call your lordship's atten- 
 tion, in the first place, to the claim which is made in this case, 
 and the answer which upon the pleadings laid before the court, 
 has been made to that claim. The observations that I shall 
 have to address to your lordship, of course, will divide them- 
 selves, as far as questions of law are concerned, into two parts ; 
 first, apart altogether from the question of laches, and assuming 
 this to be the case of a plaintiff who has come promptly, imme- 
 diately upon acquiring knowledge of the facts, to ask for a 
 return of property which has been parted with, my first point 
 will be that in that case assuming that to be the case there 
 is here no claim sustainable before the court for the return of 
 this property. My second point will be, that supposing in such 
 a case of prompt demand for the return of property parted with, 
 there would have been a title on the part of the plaintiff to relief 
 by judgment of the court, yet in this case there is no such title, 
 because of the time which has elapsed since the knowledge of 
 the facts. When I deal with that I shall have to call your 
 lordship's attention to this, that in this case we have not 
 only the case of a plaintiff cognisant of all the facts, and resting 
 for years without making any claim at all for the return of the 
 property which it is now alleged she is entitled to have back, we 
 have something a great deal more than that, we have acquies- 
 cence by conduct on the part of the plaintiff in the continued 
 user of the property, the custody of which she has given to the 
 community, and the income of which she knows perfectly well 
 is being, from year to year, devoted to the purposes of that com- 
 munity. 
 
 The first allegation, and the principal allegation in the state- 
 ment of claim, is one to which I yield an immediate acquies- 
 cence. The plaintiff asks the court to declare that the property 
 made over to the defendant Skinner was made over to her as 
 trustee for the plaintiff, and not by way of gift. Our answer is, 
 it was not made over by way of gift to Miss Skinner. The 
 defendant, Skinner, took no property in that for her own enjoy- 
 ment or benefit at all. It was handed over to her as trustee ; 
 she is bound by trusts applicable to that money ; she has
 
 SBEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 219 
 
 declared herself to be bound by those trusts, and to hold this 
 money, as well as all the other property which comes to her as 
 mother superior of this convent, solely for the purpose of dis- 
 charging the trusts of the convent; and I shall point out to 
 your lordship presently how, according to my contention, she 
 holds this property now clothed with a trust, which is a perfectly 
 legal trust, which is a sufficiently defined trust, and which would 
 be enforceable in this court, if she were evincing any disposition 
 to alienate. If Miss Skinner were to intimate, or give any 
 ground for suspecting, an intention that to-morrow she would sell 
 out the stock and appropriate it to purposes of her own indi- 
 vidual benefit, I have no hesitation whatever in saying that this 
 court would interpose ; the Attorney-General would be entitled 
 to come to the court and say that this money was in her hands 
 upon a specific and legal trust, and call upon the court to restrain 
 her from alienating. 
 
 That is the first proposition in the claim, and I call your lord- 
 ship's attention to it, because your lordship will see that there 
 is no single case in the books which can be quoted to your lord- 
 ship where money has been handed over upon trust in the per- 
 formance of which the donor and the trustee had a common 
 interest, and where, after the execution of those trusts, and after 
 the expenditure of money so handed over for the purpose in 
 which they had such a common interest, the court then inter- 
 fered to make one of the persons interested in those objects 
 return to the other the property which that other had con- 
 tributed for the common purpose. There is no such case in the 
 books ; and I submit, upon that point, there is a material and 
 sound distinction between the case that is now before your lord- 
 ship, and that case which is common in the books, but is the 
 only one to be found, where the person receiving the money has 
 received it for the purpose of individual benefit, or for the 
 purpose of performing some object, which was his individual 
 object, and not an object in which the person giving the money 
 and he had a common interest. I do not, at this moment, 
 trouble about the details of the claim. Of course, one will have 
 to say something with regard to that at another time ; but I am 
 confining myself to principle. The claim to set aside this con- 
 veyance of property by way of trust, is made upon the ground 
 that undue influence was exercised by the defendant, Miss 
 Skinner; and undoubtedly the ladies who are the real de- 
 fendants in this case, and who are represented by Miss Skinner, 
 because it is under her name the property was conveyed, and 
 she was the nominee under the will those ladies are undoubt- 
 edly all interested in the attitude which the plaintiff's repre- 
 sentatives have here taken wjth regard to that question of undue 
 influence.
 
 220 ALLCARD r. SKINNER 
 
 I was very glad to hear on Saturday from my learned friend, 
 Sir Charles Russell, an absolute disclaimer of any suggestion 
 that there had been undue influence on the part of Mr. Nihill or 
 of Miss Skinner, as apart from the influence upon the plaintiff 
 of the obligations into which she had voluntarily entered. I do 
 not want to press that- admission too far. I am aware that Sir 
 Charles Russell has contended, and that Mr. Finlay has con- 
 tended, that the establishment of the relation which for years 
 existed between the plaintiff and Miss Skinner and Mr. Nihill, 
 was the establishment of a system or course of undue influence, 
 and that dealing with the matter upon the principles of the 
 Courts of Equity, it would be taken that she was under in- 
 fluences which were undue, so far as they were used to induce 
 the transfer of this property. I think I am rightly denning the 
 proposition which they now put, but with regard to any personal 
 influence any effort by Mr. Nihill or by the Mother Superior 
 to persuade this lady to hand over property for their advantage, 
 or even for the advantage of the convent, the use by them of 
 spiritual influence in order to do that, the suggestion is now 
 abandoned by the plaintiffs representatives here. If that be so, 
 the question is, what was the influence which existed at the 
 time this money was paid over ; and the defendants in their 
 answer have set out the history of the relations between Miss 
 Allcard and the Convent of the Sisters of St. Mary-at-the-Cross. 
 They have stated what the history was of her coming to join 
 this convent. They have alleged, and I shall ask your lordship 
 to say that they have truly alleged, the whole of that history. 
 When one comes to consider what the evidence is which Miss 
 Allcard has given here, I think I can pledge myself that every 
 syllable of the statement of defence has been proved by the 
 evidence, not of Mr. Nihill and of the Mother Superior, but 
 practically and substantially by the evidence of Miss Allcard 
 herself. 
 
 Upon the question, then, of undue influence, my learned 
 friend, Mr. Finlay, has addressed your lordship with great 
 energy and power, and he has found himself compelled to say 
 that the undue influence existed at the time this lady entered 
 the convent. Your lordship pointed out, while he was address- 
 ing the court, that the money which was given, the transfers 
 which were executed in the years 1874 and 1876, and the con- 
 stant handing over to Miss Skinner, from time to time, as they 
 came to hand, of the cheques and dividend warrants to which 
 she was entitled, were transfers and gifts in pursuance of the 
 obligation which she had taken upon herself when she went into 
 the convent and became a professed sister. The influence 
 under which they were handed over was not an influence exer- 
 cised at the time they were handed over for the purpose of
 
 221 
 
 obtaining a fresh gift to the service of the convent, or to the 
 persons to whom they were given, but was the influence of the 
 obligation which this lady had taken upon herself, and to which, 
 in her conscience, she then deemed herself to be irrevocably 
 bound. Having taken that vow of poverty upon her when she 
 entered the sisterhood, as she took upon herself the other vows 
 of devoting herself to attending the poor and the sick, the 
 handing over of the dividend warrants, or the execution of the 
 transfer, was as instinctive an act of the religious life to which 
 she had devoted herself as the lifting of a cup of water to a poor 
 child's lips would have been, or as the opening of the door of 
 the convent would have been if she had been appointed portress 
 to the sisterhood for the day. There is no point of influence, or 
 the exertion of any active influence producing the intention of 
 the gift at the time when the dividends were handed over and 
 the transfers executed. They are all referable back to the time 
 when Miss Allcard, after years of consideration, after the freest 
 possible discussion with those who were not only entitled to 
 advise her, but were thoroughly competent to advise her upon 
 the matter, came to the solemn determination that the rest of her 
 life should be given to the service of God in this sisterhood, and 
 that she would take with her to this sisterhood, for the fulfilment 
 of the purposes which were so close to her heart, all the money 
 which God had allowed her to have at her disposal or control. 
 
 Now, my lord, there is one observation, and only one other 
 observation, I want to make at this moment, with regard to the 
 point of time at which a transfer was executed, or a dividend 
 warrant handed over. The undue influence is influence pro- 
 ducing, not an act, but an intention to do an act ; and I think, 
 if my learned friends examine the authorities on this point, they 
 will find that the true proposition is this, that when the intention 
 to do an act has been produced by an improper influence or 
 undue influence operating upon the mind, then that intention 
 will be treated as if it had not existed, and the act itself will be 
 treated as if it were done under compulsion or control. I do 
 not stop to look carefully at all the judgments which have been 
 pronounced upon this subject, but I shall have to call your lord- 
 ship's attention to the case of Whyte v. Meade (which I shall 
 mention presently for another purpose), which is reported in 
 2 Irish Equity Reports, page 420. Your lordship will find in 
 the judgment this phrase : " He is not called upon to say 
 whether the deed was technical or not, or whether counsel saw 
 it ; we do not want to know what the plaintiff said to him ; what 
 we seek to know is this, if she had an intention to make this 
 disposition of her property, how it was produced." I venture to 
 say that is the question which is stated in all the cases with 
 regard to undue influence which will be found in the books ;
 
 222 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 and the question is with regard to each of these transfers, and 
 with regard to the handing over of the dividend warrants or 
 cheques, by what influence was the intention produced in pursu- 
 ance of which that was handed over? That, of course, takes 
 one back to the beginning of this lady's connection with the 
 Convent, and the time at which she, with full knowledge, as she 
 tells your lordship, took the vows and accepted the obligation. 
 My friend, Mr. Finlay, was forced back upon that. He sug- 
 gested that this could not be treated as being in accordance 
 with or under the control of the vow of poverty which she had 
 made, because, as I understood him to say, that vow was un- 
 lawful, or, at all events, was not enforceable at law. Those 
 phrases are sometimes mistakenly used as if they were con- 
 vertible. But these vows were not unlawful. 
 
 Mr. FINLAY : I did not say they were. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I am quite content. These vows 
 are not unlawful. There is nothing unlawful in this country 
 about taking vows of this kind. That is not the test. It is not 
 a question whether the original declaration of intention was 
 enforceable at law ; we are perfectly familiar with these ques- 
 tions of undue influence in another court. In the Court of 
 Probate this case arises more often than in any other court. 
 There it is frequently alleged that a person nearing the end of 
 life, perhaps with impaired faculties, unable to exercise a very 
 strong judgment upon matters of business, does execute a will 
 by which people benefit, under whose care she has been, and 
 under whose exclusive control or care she may have been for 
 some time. The question is, with regard to undue influence, 
 when was the intention formed to make this provision, and it is 
 the most ordinary and conclusive answer to any suggestion that 
 undue influence has been used to obtain this disposition of pro- 
 perty if you are able to show that at an earlier time, when that 
 person was in full command of her faculties, had free and inde- 
 pendent advice upon the matter, and was able to form a perfectly 
 reasonable determination, that she had formed the determina- 
 tion which she afterwards carried out by the provisions of the 
 will. So here the question whether the intention was revocable 
 or not is entirely immaterial. It was a revocable intention when 
 it was made it was not enforceable at law ; but when the 
 question is, if the gift was produced by undue influence, the 
 most overwhelming evidence that it was an intention made 
 without the exercise of undue influence is to be found in the 
 fact that it was an intention considered for years, considered 
 carefully as the time approached when the intention itself was 
 to be embodied in what was believed to be an irrevocable vow, 
 and that at that time of perfect freedom that intention was 
 distinctly formed and expressed.
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 223 
 
 The argument of my learned friend, Mr. Finlay, seemed to 
 me to force him back to a proposition which I do not think my 
 friend, Sir Charles Russell, will ask your lordship to accept. I 
 think Mr. Finlay was forced back upon the proposition that the 
 vows taken by a nun on entering a convent were vows of such a 
 character that anything done afterwards in pursuance of the 
 vows will of itself be considered as done under undue influence. 
 I can understand that proposition, but it is a proposition not 
 supported by any case in the books. There are two or three 
 cases with regard to nuns, but the latest declaration of the 
 highest judicial authority upon the subject which I can find is, 
 that the question is a very difficult one, that it has never been 
 decisively pronounced upon ; but the inclination of that highest 
 judicial authority is not to hold that the continuous adherence 
 to a vow of poverty by a nun could be treated as any sort of 
 undue influence on the part of those among whom the person 
 was placed. I think it right to call attention to two cases 
 namely, the one which I have already referred to of Whyte v. 
 Meade, and the other a case of much later date, viz., Fulham 
 v. Macarthy, reported in i House of Lords Cases, 703. 
 
 The case of Whyte v. Meade was this : " The plaintiff in 1825, 
 being then eighteen years of age, went to reside at Ranelagh 
 convent, whether as a postulant for the order of nuns residing 
 therein, or as a pupil, was controverted ; but it was clearly 
 proved that her friends were very averse to her becoming a nun, 
 and the bill charged, and some witnesses deposed, that the said 
 defendants, in order to induce them to agree to plaintift's resid- 
 ing in the nunnery, expressly promised she should not be pro- 
 fessed until after she kttained the age of twenty-one years, and 
 that her friends should be apprised previously, and that it was 
 upon this express condition the consent of her friends was 
 obtained ; that it was agreed she should pay ,600 for all her 
 expenses in the convent for her life, if she should remain ; that 
 in 1827 the defendants induced her to become a nun under 
 twenty-one, and in the absence of and without apprising her 
 friends, she was professed privately in the evening, but plaintiff 
 admitted she was then willing to become a nun ; that, being 
 under age, the ,600 was not paid, but that ,40 a year was paid 
 until 1829, when .1000 three and a half per cent, stock was 
 transferred by her for the use of the said defendants ; that in 
 March, 1829, being very ill, she was induced to make over her 
 real property for the benefit of the society ; and, accordingly, by 
 deed of lease and release, she granted to these defendants the 
 lands of Trudder, and part of the lands of Wood Park, for her 
 interest therein, upon trust as to the latter for the use of the 
 society, and as to the former for herself for life, and after her 
 death upon trust that the said defendants should retain for said
 
 224 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 society 17 per annum, and pay the residue to her sister and 
 her sister's children, and other defendants in the cause ; that 
 upon this occasion, Terence Dolan, the attorney of said society, 
 and the brother of the defendant Catherine M. Dolan, prepared 
 said deeds, and plaintiff had not the assistance of any professional 
 friends, although one, John Mills, was at this time her attorney. 
 She admitted she privately left the convent in 1827, and after 
 remaining with her friends a week voluntarily returned to the 
 convent. The bill further charged, and evidence was given in 
 support of the allegation, that plaintiff was excluded from the 
 society of her friends. That she finally quitted the convent in 
 April, 1836, and had been since in receipt of the rents. The 
 defendants in their answer denied the agreement not to profess 
 her until she attained the age of twenty-one : insisted that they 
 wrote word to her sister in time to be present at the profession, 
 or to have interfered to prevent it, and did not write to her other 
 friends, because plaintiff did not express any wish that they 
 should do so ; and relied upon the Statute of Limitations in bar 
 of the account ; that the cause of refusing some of her friends 
 was, that they had assisted her in privately withdrawing from 
 the convent ; and as to others, that by the rules of the convent, 
 only certain days were set apart for receiving visitors, and all 
 persons calling on the other days were excluded. Mr. Dolan in 
 his depositions proved that he had been employed by the 
 plaintiff as her attorney at least four times since she came to 
 reside at Ranelagh in the management of her property, and 
 specified the occasions ; that the plaintiff was not under any 
 restraint of any person whatsoever ; that she communicated to 
 him fully and freely her own free and unbiased wishes respect- 
 ing such professional business ; that Mr. Mills during this time 
 acted for plaintiff's sister, and not for the plaintiff. In further 
 depositions on the part of the defendant, it was stated that they 
 always treated the plaintiff with great kindness and attention. 
 That they never endeavoured to induce her to dispose of her 
 property contrary to her own inclination ; that the cause of 
 excluding her friends was that visitors are only admitted on 
 certain days by the rules of the society." Evidence was given, 
 and Baron Pennefather in giving his judgment states the case : 
 " In the year 1825 this young woman, the plaintiff in this cause 
 entered into the establishment of the defendants as a lodger, 
 and unquestionably not as a person who had irrevocably bound 
 herself to take the veil. That this was so is quite manifest, in- 
 dependent of the express evidence of what was stipulated at the 
 time she entered the convent. And what is that which was so 
 stipulated, and which ought to be done without express arrange- 
 ment, namely, that she was not to be professed until she attained 
 the age of twenty-one j nor even then without communicating
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 22$ 
 
 with her friends ; that is the evidence of one of the witnesses 
 (Mr. Henry) ; it is not denied, nor can there be any doubt 
 thrown upon it. 
 
 " Upon that stipulation she entered the convent, and it was 
 further agreed that she was to pay 40 a year until she took the 
 veil, and 600 afterwards ; the defendants have no pretence to 
 claim the ^600 until she took the veil. When the case, there- 
 fore, is put upon contract, there is no foundation for it ; the 
 contract was violated in every material point by the defendants, 
 because the plaintiff took the veil and, we must suppose, by 
 the influence of the defendants, whilst she was under age con- 
 trary to the duty of the defendants even without any agreement 
 upon the subject but also in direct violation of the express 
 agreement they entered into with the plaintiff and her friends. 
 In February, 1827, she remains under the same influence, it 
 must be supposed, which, give me leave to say, is incontestably 
 proved by her having taken the veil ; and so she continues until 
 1829, when she becomes unwell. Her brother-in-law is denied 
 access to her ; her sister is allowed to see her, but never without 
 a member of the convent being present ; and in such circum- 
 stances as these she transfers 1,100 to the defendants and the 
 whole of her real estate, with the exception of some special 
 portion of it which she gave to her relations. Can it be 
 seriously said that a transaction like this ought to stand ; that a 
 deed executed by a person placed at a convent like this person 
 placed in a situation where that undue influence is more 
 likely to be exercised than in any other, which Courts of Equity 
 should interfere to prevent and shall it not be presumed 
 beyond almost a doubt, so strong as not to be rebutted, that the 
 documents in question were executed by the plaintiff under 
 undue influence. But that is not all ; the deed was got up by 
 Mr. Dolan, the professional friend of the convent, without the 
 presence of any professional friend, or of any friend at all, of 
 the infant ; and this gentleman takes upon himself to swear 
 that these ladies are so incapable of erring, that all this young 
 woman has done was done without the slightest influence 
 having been exercised over her the spontaneous effusion of 
 her own mind. When we find him thus volunteering to swear 
 what the Searcher of hearts alone could tell, is it not plain that 
 he gave his heart and mind, not to the unfortunate victim upon 
 whom he was about to practise as far as he was able, but to the 
 defendants in this cause ? He is not called upon to say whether 
 the deed was technical or not, or whether counsel saw it ; we 
 do not want to know what the plaintiff said to him ; what we 
 seek to know is this, if she had an intention to make this dis- 
 position of her property how it was produced. And no man 
 can doubt that it was produced by the influence of these ladies 
 
 P
 
 226 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 over a young person secluded from every friend her nearest 
 relations excluded from her. Can we hesitate for one moment 
 to believe that the intention was produced by an exercise of 
 influence on the part of those who ought not to be engaged in 
 secular pursuits, but ought to have been devoted to the instruc- 
 tion of the plaintiffs mind? Upon the whole we think, without 
 any doubt, that we ought to decree a re-conveyance of these 
 premises, and the account sought for by the bill." Then Baron 
 Richards concurs, and the judges say, that "the court did not 
 Intend to lay down any general rule, but that the particular cir- 
 cumstances of this case brought it within that class of cases 
 which decide that transactions like those disclosed in this case 
 ought not to stand." I quote that for the sake of the two ex- 
 pressions which show that the real question is, when the inten- 
 tion was produced. That case and this are as wide asunder as 
 the poles. In that case a young girl of eighteen was received 
 into a convent with the express stipulation that her friends 
 should be advised before her period of novitiate ended, and she 
 was bound by an irrevocable vow ; but that condition was 
 broken. On some ground or other her relatives were excluded 
 from her society, and therefore prevented from giving her any 
 advice or assistance at all. The deed reserved to her own use, 
 and made them trustees for her of half of the property she pro- 
 posed to devote. There was no intention to do this before she 
 entered the convent, or at any time when she was in the free 
 exercise of her judgment, and open to those who were in a posi- 
 tion to advise her. This is a different case, and I do not now 
 dwell on the circumstances showing the difference, because I 
 shall presently have to call attention to them more fully. 
 
 In Fulham v. Macarthy the actual judgment which was 
 given by the House of Lords is not material, as it passed upon 
 a side issue. That is a case in which a merchant of Cork died 
 intestate, leaving five sons and five daughters. Two of the 
 daughters became professed nuns "of the Ursuline Order in a 
 religious house, or convent, at Blackrock, near Cork, and he 
 paid for each ,1,000 to the convent as her portion, that being 
 about, if not more than, the sum usually paid on the entrance of 
 persons of their station in life into the convent. It is a rule of 
 all the convents of the said Order that any property to which 
 the nuns become entitled after being professed becomes the 
 property of the community of their convent." I need not go 
 into the details of the facts of the case, as they are immaterial 
 for the purpose, but when the Lord Chancellor of Ireland had 
 to deal with the case, your lordship will find, at page 706. that 
 he "offered the plaintiffs an issue to try whether the deeds of 
 assignment were executed by Maria and Catherine of their own 
 fiec wi'l ; and ilitir counsel dei'linim-, the issue, his lordship dc-
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 227 
 
 creed that, the court offering to direct an issue at law to try 
 whether the two deeds of assignment in the pleadings men- 
 tioned, bearing date the 2gth of December, 1843, and the I3th 
 day of March, 1844, were respectively executed by the said 
 plaintiff, Mary Macarthy, and the said defendant Catherine 
 Macarthy, as free agents, and the Counsel at the bar for the 
 said plaintiffs declining to take such issue, they insisting that, 
 without any such being directed, the plaintiffs were entitled to a 
 decree, and it appearing to the court that the said deeds were 
 not, nor was either of them, executed by the said plaintiff Mary 
 Macarthy and the said defendant Catherine Macarthy as such 
 free agents, but that, on the contrary, the same were executed 
 by them respectively not of their free will, but under the pressure 
 and compulsion of the vow of obedience taken by them re- 
 spectively on becoming professed members of the convent in the 
 pleadings mentioned, and wherein they then still remained as 
 such members, and under the obligation of the said vow, the 
 court doth decree that no relief ought to be given by the court 
 founded on deeds so obtained, and thereupon his lordship doth 
 dismiss the plaintiffs bill." The matter afterwards came before 
 the House of Lords upon the question whether the Lord Chan- 
 cellor had been right in directing the issue ; but there are some 
 observations which your lordship will find at page 721, which 
 are very material for the purpose for which I am now referring 
 to this case. Lord Brougham said : " I take entirely the same 
 view, and did so throughout the hearing, as my noble and 
 learned friend. I think we are not called upon to enter upon 
 the merits of the case in this proceeding, though I certainly 
 have great doubt with regard to something that I have seen of 
 the judgment of the Lord Chancellor upon the merits respecting 
 the compulsion, said to be exercised over a party who is under 
 the influence of a vow voluntarily taken to do something which 
 another shall direct. That is a question which I wish to have 
 no necessity of ever deciding, which I think is involved in very 
 considerable doubt and difficulty, and which I am very happy 
 upon the present occasion to think that we are not called upon 
 to discuss or dispose of." Lord Campbell follows, and says : 
 " I shall most cautiously abstain from giving any opinion upon 
 the many points which have been adverted to with respect to 
 the merits of the case, or to the effect of a person entering into 
 a religious house, now that the Roman Catholic religion is not 
 the established religion of the State, but that certain toleration 
 is granted to those religious houses. I likewise abstain from 
 giving any opinion with respect to the merits of the transaction 
 between the parties." So far as I know, that judgment, de- 
 livered in 1848, is the last judgment which has been delivered 
 by an English court of la\v which, has touched upon the question
 
 228 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 of the continuing obligation of a vow of obedience made by 
 nuns when they enter a convent, and upon the question whether 
 the transfer of property done in accordance with that vow of 
 obedience is to be treated as done under undue influence. 
 Then your lordship will see that the learned lords do not ex- 
 press a judgment upon that point ; but the terms in which Lord 
 Brougham spoke certainly point to his impression that it could 
 not be considered undue influence. 
 
 There are two very remarkable things that I want to call 
 attention to in this case. At the bottom of page 476, the page 
 which I first read to your lordship, occur these words : "The 
 deeds were not executed by them as free agents ; but, on the 
 contrary, the same were executed by them respectively not of 
 their free will, but under the pressure and compulsion of the vow 
 of obedience taken by them respectively." It appears in this 
 case that it was simply obedience to the order of the mother 
 superior or the ecclesiastical superior which was the cause of 
 the execution of these deeds. Lord Broughton says : " I 
 certainly have great doubt with regard to something that I have 
 seen of the judgment of the Lord Chancellor upon the merits 
 respecting the compulsion said to be exercised over a party who 
 is under the influence of a vow voluntarily taken to do some 
 thing which another shall direct." It is entirely, then, put upon 
 the ground of the question of obedience, and, so far as appears 
 from that case, there is no question as to the vow of poverty. I 
 think my learned friend will be forced, without any authority at 
 all to support him in the matter, to ask your lordship to say that 
 a monk or nun entering a monastery or convent, making a vow 
 of poverty and of obedience, and in pursuance of that vow of 
 poverty divesting himself or herself at a future time, as he or 
 she has vowed and undertaken to do, of his or her property, for 
 the benefit of the community your lordship will be asked to 
 say, without the smallest shred of authority to induce that con- 
 clusion to be found in the books, that that is the exercise of 
 undue influence, and that the court will set aside all transfers of 
 property, current income, or of principal, which took place under 
 the influence of that continuing obligation. All I say is, it is a 
 very grave proposition ; a proposition very large indeed in its 
 extent and result ; and before my learned friend, Sir Charles 
 Russell, can persuade your lordship to accept and give force to 
 such a proposition as that, I think it would be necessary for him 
 to produce clear and definite authority upon the books, while I 
 venture to say he can produce no authority of any sort or kind. 
 
 That is the matter to which I have to direct your lordship's 
 attention upon the law of this case. And now let me ask your 
 lordship to consider what were the rules and obligations which 
 were accepted by this lady. A great deal has been said by my
 
 SPEECH POR THE DEFENDANT 229 
 
 learned friend, Mr. Finlay, with regard to the rule of obedience, 
 and he has used strong expressions with regard to some matter 
 that he has commented upon in this case. He picked out from 
 the rule of obedience a certain number of phrases which, taken 
 by themselves, and without their context, would app?ar rather 
 startling ; but I want to call your lordship's attention to what 
 the rule is, and to show what is the real meaning of it. It is in 
 evidence from the plaintiff that when she first entered this 
 sisterhood there was but one professed sister Sister Monica 
 and there were two novices. The order was in process of con- 
 solidation, and at the time she became a professed sister things 
 had not taken the form they now have. It was not, as your 
 lordship is aware, until 1872 that the rule of poverty was 
 formulated in the mode it now is ; it was not until 1874 that she 
 herself signed that rule ; and it was not until 1874, 1 think at 
 all events some time after she joined the order that the rule of 
 obedience was put into form. It does not purport to be one of 
 the rules of the order. It purports to be, and is, if one reads it 
 through, a defence of the vow of obedience which has been 
 taken by a novice and by a professed sister on entering the 
 convent. I do not propose to read it all through again, partly 
 for the sake of saving time, and partly because I do not care to 
 read and discuss here in a controversial manner an essay or a 
 treatise upon obedience which was written for the guidance of 
 sisters leading a life of religious devotion. But this I will say 
 for it (and your lordship has read the book through), I do not 
 think that there is a single phrase among those quoted by my 
 learned friend, Mr. Finlay, which is not immediately justified in 
 the course of this treatise, either by a quotation from the Scrip- 
 ture itself, or a quotation from the writings of one of those 
 saintly men whose example and whose teaching are not the pro- 
 perty of any one branch of the Catholic Church. There is the 
 fullest authority given here step by step for the rule which is 
 laid down. I do not think that there is any single sentence in 
 it which is stronger than a sentence taken from one of the 
 Epistles, where the Apostle enjoined the Christians that they 
 were to obey their heathen masters " not with eye-service 
 merely but as unto Christ? I do not think there is a stronger 
 expression than is to be found in that expression of the Apostle ; 
 but if there be, it must be remembered that this is a rule for the 
 guidance not of a secular life, but of a religious life, and that is 
 the essential difference. A person passing his life in the 
 ordinary work of a profession, or trade, or business, has to deal 
 with many responsibilities, to discharge various duties, to meet 
 responsibilities of position, responsibilities of advising other 
 people, and of guiding or ordering his own life ; but in seeking 
 and, I venture to think, very often finding, the highest type of
 
 30 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 the spiritual and Christian life, these ladies, and those who, like 
 them, in many other establishments of ihe kind, have devoted 
 their whole lives to the service of God, have, when they entered 
 these walls, done with and put away all the responsibilities with 
 regard to which any such rule of obedience may be suggested 
 to be strange or harsh or unreasonable. What is it, after they 
 have entered the religious life, which they have to do ? We 
 will take these sisters. From the day the professed sister passed 
 into that convent she had put away from her not only the actual 
 possession of money, but all possibility that at any time she 
 should become possessed of any. She took that course delibe- 
 rately, in order that there might never be any temptation to her 
 to turn back from God's work, to which her hand was set, by 
 the contemplation of the advantage or pleasure which she might 
 have in the enjoyment of the life outside. Not for any purpose 
 except the guarding of their own souls and the sanctity of their 
 own lives is that obligation taken. That obligation once taken, 
 what sort of life is it within the area and compass of which this 
 rule of obedience has to work ? Their work will be the daily, 
 ordinary, regular course of devotion to the work of the convent. 
 It is only within the range of that work that any instructions 
 can be given to them, or any obedience required, because it is 
 only with regard to that there is anything left in which they take 
 an interest. So far as their property is concerned, is it imagined 
 that when anybody entered that convent the idea of getting rid of 
 property afterwards was looked upon as being part of the law of 
 obedience, or that those who were to exercise authority in the 
 convent looked forward to being able to lay their hands upon 
 property, by virtue of their right to tell the sister that she was 
 to hand over that property? My lord, the whole thing was 
 outside the scope of their obligation altogether. Holy obedience 
 was to be the guide of their lives. It has been laid down, not 
 alone by the saintly men whose words are quoted here, but it 
 has been laid down by many others, as one of the highest 
 duties and beauties of the Christian life. They took for the rule 
 of their Order, with regard to obedience, that principle which 
 was very beautifully expressed by one of our own Church the 
 godly George Herbert : 
 
 "A servant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine : 
 Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, 
 Makes that and th' action fine." 
 
 It was to make drudgery divine, and it was that the sweeping 
 of a room should be the expression of that divine drudgery 
 which they were undertaking, it was with that object and that 
 intention only that this vow of obedience was accepted. I feel
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT z$i 
 
 bound to dwell upon this, after the language which my learned 
 friend, Mr. Finlay, has addressed to your lordship upon this 
 rule. There are three steps in this holy obedience ; first, there 
 is the compliance, the immediate and unquestioning compliance, 
 with the actual direction given. But that compliance might be 
 a grudging compliance. The next step is the submission of the 
 will, the refusal to entertain it as a question whether the direc- 
 tion is right or wrong, but the acceptance of the voice of the 
 superior placed in control of that convent, as being the expression 
 of a lawful authority, and therefore, to use again the New Testa- 
 ment teaching, as an authority in its essence directed from and 
 coming from God, from whom all authority comes. This second 
 step in holy obedience is to bring the will to that state of sub- 
 mission that it accepts, without murmuring and without ques- 
 tion, the direction given. There is a further step necessary to 
 be taken in order to arrive at the absolute purity and sanctity 
 of religious life, and it is this : There might be a compliance 
 with the command ; there might be submission of the will so 
 that there should be no conscious rebellion of the will against 
 the order given, but there yet might be with that resignation of 
 the will the permission to oneself to discuss and consider intel- 
 lectually whether the command was a right one, and whether 
 the superior was not mistaken in giving that command. This 
 essay, for it is an essay (there is nothing signed by the sisters ; 
 it is their understanding of the rule of their life), points out, by 
 authorities far higher than the clergyman who wrote it, that 
 complete obedience is only obtained when there is an imme- 
 diate submission to the actual command, when there is the re- 
 signation of the individual will to the will of the person from 
 whom that command lawfully comes, and when there is an exer- 
 cise of the will in order that the understanding shall abstain from 
 questioning or discussing the propriety of the instruction so given. 
 Reading the rule in that way, having regard to the purpose for 
 which it is written, you will see towards the beginning of it that 
 the writer says the world denounces this as being the abnegation 
 of individual will, and it is to justify to themselves and to ex- 
 plain to them the principles on which they are acting that that 
 was written ; and read in that way, and in view of the simple 
 lives of those to whom it was addressed, I do not see that there 
 is in it any sentence or expression which the writer of it should 
 regret, or which was in the least degree hostile to the interests 
 and rights, duties and privileges, of those who were accepting 
 it. Your lordship will, 1 daresay, have observed that my learned 
 friend dwelt very much upon the rule of obedience, and the 
 case is put to you as if this rule of obedience were the principal 
 rule ; as if when Miss Allcard entered this convent she gave 
 herself up as an instrument in the hands of those who ruled the
 
 232 ALLCARD v. 
 
 sisterhood, to do in everything whatever pleased them, and that 
 it was in discharge of that duty of obedience, and unquestioning 
 obedience, that she executed these transfers and signed these 
 cheques. In all respects it seems to me that the rule of poverty 
 is a far more important rule to be considered with regard to this 
 case, because the rule of poverty is one that is interwoven with 
 the whole structure and intention of the sisterhood. It is the 
 very foundation of it ; it is the one thing which is put forward 
 n all their claims upon others ; it is the one thing which was 
 insisted upon in all those services which, when they were com- 
 piled, it was never expected would be criticised in a court of 
 justice with regard to the terms used in them, but which I am 
 glad have been criticised and discussed, because, as far as I 
 can see or know from the conduct of this case, there is nothing 
 at all in them which any one connected with the sisterhood would 
 desire to have kept back. 
 
 Now, about the vow of poverty. The vow of poverty had 
 three aspects. In the first place, it was the expression of the 
 deepest devotion of the sisters to their work. In the next place, 
 as I have already incidentally reminded your lordship, it was 
 the safeguard of the sisters themselves. They were entering a 
 sisterhood of great hardship and great self-denial, a life where 
 they were brought constantly face to face with the most painful 
 and pitiful phases of human poverty and suffering, and their 
 only strength and safeguard in undertaking that work was the 
 fact that they had deliberately set themselves free from all 
 temptations to go Toack to the pleasures and enjoyments of the 
 world. They deliberately accept it at a time of mature age ; at 
 a time when they are perfectly cognizant of the work they will 
 have to devote themselves to ; and they accept it (and I do not 
 exclude Miss Allcard from the number) in full and ungrudging 
 devotion to the work which they are undertaking. There is 
 another thing. It was not only the expression of their deepest 
 faith, and the safeguard of their perseverance in the work they 
 were undertaking ; it was also the great claim they made on the 
 charity of the world. As they went to relatives and strangers 
 asking for subscriptions for the work done at the convent, they 
 took out the letters which are contained in this book;* and from 
 beginning to end of the letters the whole justification of their 
 claim is that they have made themselves poor for the sake oi 
 Christ, and as poor they are ministering to the poor. That was 
 the basis of their claim. I must refer to the services which 
 Miss Allcard went through, and your lordship will see how in 
 
 * " The Sisters of the Poor and their Work," by the Rev. H. D. Nihill, 
 being twelve letters to a friend, originally printed for private circulation, 
 and now published by Regan Paul, Trench & Co., i, Paternoster Square.
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT Itf 
 
 every service that is put in the strongest possible way. This is 
 no case of a sisterhood desiring- to extend its influence or 
 authority by bringing novices to its doors, and eventually re- 
 ceiving them as professed sisters. There is no concealment of 
 any part of their life. They receive as associates people who 
 come in and see them from day to day, and can gauge the 
 severity of the duties which the sisters impose upon themselves. 
 Indeed, it is the desire of those who rule and govern convents of 
 this kind to guard themselves against difficulties in the convent 
 and disappointment in the convent, by taking care, as far as 
 possible, that no one shall commit her future to such a rule as 
 this without being absolutely well informed as to the obligations 
 which will fall upon her. Upon the rule of poverty, I should 
 like to remind your lordship of this that with regard to this 
 rule, as to the rule of obedience, there was no formal rule when 
 Miss Allcard entered the convent. It was not drawn up till 
 later. It was in 1868 that she first went to the convent. In 
 1870 she became a postulant, later on a novice; and in 1871 she 
 became a professed sister, and entered permanently upon the 
 life of the convent. This rule of poverty was not put into its 
 present shape till 1872 ; and just observe with what care it was 
 that he who wrote that rule, and those who were accepting it, as 
 expressing the terms upon which they entered the convent, had 
 it made known to them. Miss Allcard says, that from 1872 to 
 1874 this rule was among the sisters, and it was read every 
 week. The rule was copied out ; a book of the order was given 
 to each sister. Miss Allcard says that she copied out with her 
 own hand the greater part of that rule ; that it was read to the 
 convent every week from 1872 to the middle of the year 1874 ; 
 and having had a year and a-half, or two years, of full con- 
 sideration of the terms of that order, the sisters signed the de- 
 claration to which Miss Allcard's -signature is affixed, that they 
 have read that order, and that it does express the terms (I" am 
 not quoting the words exactly) and understanding upon which 
 they entered the convent. 
 
 Is it possible to have a fairer acceptance of a rule, or a more 
 careful and deliberate perseverance in the acceptance of a rule, 
 than is shown in this particular case ? The rule of poverty is 
 not all. The services to which I am now going to refer your 
 lordship are services which are full of this vow of poverty. It 
 was in July, 1868, that Miss Allcard became an associate, and 
 she has told your lordship that before she passed to the first 
 degree of the sisterhood itself, which was in January, 1870, the 
 service of the postulant was read over to her ; that everybody 
 had a book containing the service. I asked her, " Had you not 
 considered before taking such a step ? " And she said, " Yes ; 
 I went of my own free will, and with consideration." After
 
 234 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 having the service read to her, and the book in which the 
 service was copied in her possession, she of her own free wil 
 became a postulant of this convent. The only rule as to postu- 
 lants with regard to money is the fifth rule that she is to use 
 none of her own money. She was not asked to part with any 
 money or to give any undertaking. She was there as one ask- 
 ing to be admitted to the sisterhood. During the time that she 
 remained a postulant her position with regard to the sisterhood 
 was that of asking and desiring to be admitted to their body, 
 and she was there in order that she might see whether she was 
 fit to join them in their holy work ; and the rule was that she 
 was to use none of her own money. If you consider the service 
 of the postulant, I think you will see two things first, that the 
 idea of permanent unchangeable poverty is distinctly put 
 forward in the service ; next, that so far from there being any 
 inducement to join, there is a careful warning to the postulant 
 with regard to her future, and the care she is to take in entering 
 upon this life. At page 2 your lordship will observe at the top 
 that the postulant is taught to look unto Christ, and there is a 
 reference to poverty. Poverty is the key-note. 
 
 At page 4 a warning is given : " It maybe He hath not called 
 thee ; and if thou fail in this approach to the religious life, think 
 not that thou hast sinned, yea rather, it would be sin if, thinking 
 that thou art called, thou hadst not put thyself to the test, and 
 greater sin a thousand-fold if thou shouldst go on unto profes- 
 sion of that to which He had not called thee." Then, later on, 
 the mother superior quotes to her the example and the teaching 
 of Christ: "What seekest thou, my child?" "To hear the 
 Bridegroom's voice." " We hear it in holy obedience. What 
 seekest thou, my child?" "To kiss the Bridegroom's feet." 
 " We find them beneath the feet of His poor. What seekest 
 thou, my child?" "To see the Bridegroom's face." Then the 
 Mother (offering her a crucifix) says: "Behold, His face is 
 more marred than any man's. He hath no form nor comeliness, 
 neither any beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised 
 and rejected of men ; a Man of sorrows and acquainted with 
 grief. What seekest thou, my child?" "To share the Bridge- 
 groom's crown." "Behold, it is a crown of thorns. What 
 seekest thou, my child ? " " A home in the Bridegroom's heart." 
 "We seek it with Saint Mary at the Cross, for there it was 
 pierced with a spear. What seekest thou, my child?" "To 
 follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth." " If thou wilt be 
 perfect, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and come, 
 take up thy cross and follow Him. What seekest thou, my 
 child ? " " To enter the path of holy religion, and, if my Lord 
 will, to follow Him therein." Then, lest there be open to the 
 mind of the person who has gone through this service too
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 235 
 
 strong an impression that it has involved an actual self-devotion 
 to the religious life, at the end of the service she is especially 
 reminded, " Thou art bound by no promise, thou art free to go 
 as thou wert free to come ; but while thou remainest wear the 
 sweet yoke of Christ, and, in the crucifix with which I now 
 adorn thee, behold day by day the model of holy religion. 
 Learn poverty there. Learn obedience there. Learn chastity 
 there." So far with regard to the postulant. 
 
 In January, 1870, Miss Allcard took that step; her period of 
 postulancy was an unusually shorfone, and she has told us her- 
 self how that came to be. I asked her : " During the three 
 months had you been considering the duties you were to take 
 upon yourself?" and she said, "Yes." I asked why she was 
 admitted so soon. She said, " Partly because I asked." Then 
 I asked, '' What reason did you give for being admitted so 
 soon ?" She said, " Only that I was infatuated with the work." 
 I said, "You did not say then you were infatuated with the 
 work that you were devoted to the work ; " and she said, 
 "Yes, I was devoted to the work." So, after considering the 
 matter, she asks to be admitted as a novice, and gives as her 
 reason that she is devoted to the work. At the end of the three 
 months she becomes a novice, and there you will see in the 
 Service of the Novice, at page 2, she is asked : " Art thou fully 
 acquainted with the rule and obligation of this Order?" A. 
 " I am." Q. " Wilt thou gladly submit thyself thereto, during 
 the period of thy probation?" A. "I will." Q. "What dost 
 thou desire further?" A. I desire to embrace the Holy Estate 
 of Poverty." Q. " What is Poverty ? " A. " To have nothing 
 of my own, and to live the hard life of the poor." Q. "Why 
 wilt thou be poor?" A. "Because Jesus was poor." Q. 
 " Why thinkest thou that He will suffer thee voluntarily to 
 follow Him in this?" A. "Because to some He said, 'Sell all 
 that ye have and give to the poor." " See that in thine own 
 poverty thou learn to be a true sister and servant of His poor, 
 and remember always how He said, " Blessed are the poor in 
 Spirit : for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.' '' I need not go 
 further with the prayers and the addresses made on the 
 occasion of the novitiate. All I desire to put before your lord- 
 ship is, that as each step was taken the matter of poverty was 
 kept at the fore front, and the essential part of her entering into 
 that Order was that she should deprive herself of all her 
 property, and live the hard life of the poor, and minister to the 
 poor. The period of novitiate lasted for fifteen months. There 
 was no obligation upon her then. She was distinctly told that 
 at the end of the novitiate she might leave. It was in order 
 that she might satisfy herself by a knowledge of the work, and 
 by an examination of the work from day to day, and of her own
 
 236 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 conscience, whether she was fitted for the life she was under- 
 taking. She was not confined to the Convent. There was no 
 sort of seclusion from outward influence during that time. It 
 was during that fifteen months that she went to Bournemouth ; 
 and she spent six weeks there in the house of a clergyman, and 
 had every opportunity of communicating with her mother and 
 brother, and all those interested in her welfare ; so that there 
 can be no doubt whatever, after the evidence she has given and 
 the letters she has disclosed, that her devotion to this life the 
 whole character of which she knew perfectly well was a matter 
 of discussion between them. 
 
 I will just refer your Lordship to one or two answers which 
 she gave with respect to what she understood at the time she 
 made the declaration and vow of poverty. I have endeavoured 
 to get from her, and in her own language, all I possibly could. 
 I asked her as to her understanding of the vow of poverty when 
 she signed the declaration, and at the time she entered the 
 Convent. She says, " I understood that all the money was 
 taken away, and I did not mind then." Q. " You understood 
 the vow of poverty was a declaration by you that you would be 
 poor and have nothing of your own?" A. "Yes." Q. "And 
 as poor yourself you would love the poor?" A. "Yes." Q. 
 " At the same time you made those three vows, poverty, chas- 
 tity, and obedience, and you looked upon them as permanent 
 obligations, which would last as long as your life lasts?" A. 
 "Yes." Then I go on Q. "Your intention then was to make 
 a permanent gift, was it not?" A. "Because I thought I 
 should never leave it." Q. " Certainly you desired that not 
 only your life but all that God had given you in money and in 
 influence should be devoted to that service ?" A. "Yes." No 
 words can put more clearly the completeness of the intention 
 that was in that lady's mind at the time, and her absolute 
 knowledge of what she was doing. Your lordship will see the 
 point on which this directly bears. I travel back to the time 
 she joined the order, and I show you by her evidence two 
 things first, that she knew in all its fullness the undertaking 
 she was making, and what the effect of it would be ; and next, 
 that she entered upon the undertaking with all her heart, know- 
 ing its fullness, and perfectly willing to accept it in its largest 
 sense and to devote herself and all that she had to God's 
 service. With this knowledge and the intention she thus 
 describes, she became professed. From that time, in August, 
 1871, for very nearly eight years, she lived in companionship 
 with the sisters of St. Mary at the Cross. She lived in active 
 companionship, doing loyally and earnestly the work which she 
 had undertaken to do ; taking the deepest interest in all its 
 details, and happy, as she has herself told us in this court, in
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 237 
 
 the thought that, not only was she with her own life giving 
 service to God, but that everything which had been given to her 
 in the way of money was being devoted to His purposes. 
 Though this litigation must necessarily be a great trial to those 
 ladies who years ago devoted themselves to a life which has 
 removed them from trouble of various kinds, and enables them 
 to give their lives to a charitable work, still there is one matter 
 connected with this trial for which I feel unfeignedly thankful. 
 Before your lordship, tested in the severest way, there has 
 been unfolded the history of this Convent for twenty years ; the 
 whole history of the Sisterhood from the time it started has 
 been unrolled in public; the services, the writings of its founder, 
 and the whole course of its career ; and with a not very friendly 
 critic in the witness-box. Miss Allcard for ten years was in the 
 most intimate association with the ladies who were forming the 
 Sisterhood ; she saw them at all times and in all circumstances ; 
 and she did not display in the witness-box any very kindly feel- 
 ing toward those with whom she then worked. No doubt 
 influences have affected her, but she certainly displayed an 
 inclination to be unkindly in many of her observations. I will 
 say no more about it than that ; but, coming into the witness- 
 box with that inclination, and able to tell the history of that ten 
 years, she brings with her another sister, who had been there 
 seven years, also to support the evidence which she gives. 
 And there is no imputation of any sort or kind with regard 
 to the propriety of conduct of these ladies, or anybody con- 
 nected with the Convent, to be made by her or anybody. 
 There is no irregularity of life, behaviour, or conduct of any 
 kind whatever alleged or shown against any one connected with 
 the Convent. I venture to say more than that and I am very 
 glad of it, for there might have been a failure to fulfil this 
 requirement perfectly consistent with honesty and good faith 
 all the accounts of the Convent and the Sisterhood from the 
 time of its beginning active work have been brought before the 
 court, and one can put one's finger on the receipt and expendi- 
 ture of every shilling that has ever come from the property of 
 the ladies themselves, or the charity of the public, to be devoted 
 to this work. There is no point anywhere at which it can be 
 suggested that there has been concealment, or irregularity, or 
 want of good faith with regard to this matter at all. Now, I 
 am very glad, undoubtedly, that that should be the result of an 
 inquiry into the history and conduct of an institution belonging 
 to a class of institutions with regard to which there is very often 
 a common rumour, and common talk outside by those unac- 
 quainted with their inner life. Suggestions and imputations are 
 sometimes made with regard to them. I am thankful, as 
 counsel for the institution, to see that this is the result of the
 
 238 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 examination which has been made in this court. I said there 
 was no imputation or complaint made by Miss Allcard with 
 regard to conduct, but there was one. She said that she had 
 been unfairly treated and put upon ; that she had been made to 
 do more work than she ought to have done, and was treated 
 more hardly in that respect than some of the other sisters. I 
 asked her which of the other sisters, and she told me Sister 
 Mildred. I must confess I did not know which sister that was. 
 I asked Miss Allcard, when she made that complaint, whether 
 there was not a reason for her having less work ; and she 
 answered (and there was a significant emphasis in her voice), 
 " They said she was not strong, but she seemed to me as strong 
 as any of the others." That was her one complaint. But the 
 next witness who was called was Sister Mildred, who has left 
 the Convent, and is now in Miss Allcard's service. When she 
 came into the box she said that she went into the Convent in 
 1873 > th 3 * some time after she got there she had a very severe 
 illness ; that she was taken by the Mother Superior and by 
 Father Nihill by sea round to Scotland after that illness : and 
 that she only gradually recovered her strength. Now, this is 
 the one person with regard to whose treatment, as compared 
 with her own, Miss Allcard made complaint in the witness-box. 
 That is the only complaint. I am going to emphasise that still 
 more strongly, because the very complaint, as it came out, 
 examined by all the facts before us, seemed to me one of the 
 strongest pieces of testimony that could be given with regard to 
 the conduct of the Sisterhood. What was the difference be- 
 tween the two sisters? It was this. One was rich and had 
 come with full hands, bringing gifts which could enable them to 
 see rise stone by stone the building in which their work was to 
 be carried on ; the other was poor, and had come with empty 
 hands ; and during the seven years she was in the Convent 
 Sister Mildred gave nothing to the Convent, and paid nothing 
 for her own maintenance. The complaint against the ladies is, 
 that they treated the poor sister too well, and put upon the 
 shoulders of the sister who had brought her money to the 
 Convent and helped them, work which she ought not to bear, 
 but the work was put upon her to excuse the weaker sister. 
 Sister Mildred has now joined the Roman Catholic Church 
 along with Miss Allcard. She said that during the whole of the 
 seven years that she was there she had been treated with the 
 greatest kindness by the si-ters. If I wanted testimony as to 
 the work of this Sisterhood, it could not have been more fully 
 given than by these witnesses as to the absolute purity of the 
 life which the ladies led. I have completed the observations 
 which I have to make upon that point, and I have pointed out 
 that from the earliest time the rule of poverty thU absolute
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 239 
 
 denudation of oneself of all property of every kind was in 
 contemplation, that Miss Allcard carried it out, and that she 
 knew what she was doing, and for what purpose her money was 
 going, and she rejoiced in its being devoted to that work. 
 
 Now, my lord, I want to say a word apart from the question 
 of the rule of poverty. There is something else to be said. It 
 is not only upon the acceptance of the rule of poverty, and the 
 making of the vows upon joining this institution, that my case 
 on behalf of the Sisterhood rests. The intention and the 
 acceptance of the obligation began earlier than the postulancy 
 itself. Let me treat it apart from the vows taken at the different 
 services, and from the terms of the rule of which I have already 
 spoken. Before she was an associate Miss Allcard was intro- 
 duced to Mr. Nihill. It was suggested that she should see him, 
 and no one can doubt that in the year 1868, considering the 
 state of the parish in which he was labouring, and the squalid 
 poverty all round the place where the church was established, 
 that for Miss Allcard the fittest field of labour, because the 
 least attractive, was to be found in this district of Shoreditch. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH The note I took, which rather 
 impressed me, of Mr. NihilFs evidence was this: "Before 
 coming in Miss Allcard told me she had consulted her relations 
 as to the amount she was bringing in, and that she was going to 
 act against the advice of her brother," I understood "coming 
 in" meant becoming a postulant, and I think what she said 
 confirmed that. It was after she had become an associate, and 
 before she joined the lowest grade of Sisterhood. 
 
 The SOLICITOR- GENERAL : That is the point I am now 
 upon. I desire to treat it apart from the question of vows. 
 Before January, 1870, she has sought out Mr. Nihill ; she has 
 seen the place in which he is working, and she has heard of the 
 sort of establishment which he intends to put up there. She 
 knows that the ladies who have come from Manchester, three 
 in number, have housed themselves in three rooms of a model 
 lodging-house ; that they are working amongst the poor, and 
 are trying to get funds together, a large part of which they are 
 themselves bringing one of them, at all events in order to 
 have a permanent home at this place, and she tells Mr. Nihill, 
 what ? she knows she has money, and money coming to her : 
 that her friends do not like her giving it over for religious 
 purposes, but she desires to do so. She represents to him that 
 she is anxious to join in the work which they are about to do. 
 Mr. Nihill's intention, and the intentions of the Sisterhood (for 
 I cannot deal with them at all separately ; they have had 
 always the fullest confidence in his advice, and he tells you 
 that he has not acted without letting them know and under- 
 stand all thar he has been doing on their behalf) at that time
 
 240 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 was to take a piece of land close by the church at Shoreditch. 
 He tells your lordship this, that if she had gone away and had 
 never accepted the final association with the sisters, he would 
 have felt that she had been guilty of a breach of faith, because 
 it was upon the assurance that she was going to bring her 
 money and join the other sisters it was upon that assurance 
 and undertaking that he actually did the work. Suppose one 
 puts aside the question of religious observance and vows alto- 
 gether. Here the lady comes to Mr. Nihill, and says she 
 desires to bring so much money to the work ; she enables him 
 to build the larger premises and undertake the larger obliga- 
 tion, and then, afterwards, as the work is going on, from time to 
 time she fulfils that promise, quite apart from the question of 
 obligation or vows ; she hands over the money she receives ; 
 she makes transfers of the money which she has intended to use 
 for this purpose ; and years afterwards she comes and says : 
 It is true I assured you that you would have that property to 
 help you in doing the work and raising the building ; it is true 
 upon the basis of that you enlarged your plans, and I rejoiced 
 in that enlargement and the greater scope that would be given 
 to carry on this Christian work of charity. I saw the building 
 rise ; I watched its growth ; I took part in the work ; I lived 
 there myself; I rejoiced with the other sisters in the develop- 
 ment of that work ; and now, years afterwards, I say that I am 
 entitled to come and ask for, what ? The claim that is made in 
 this case cannot possibly be insisted upon in its fullness in any 
 serious way. But the claim actually made is this, that I, after 
 all this, am entitled to have back from you every shilling of the 
 money that I have handed over to you at any time. It is true 
 you have used it for a purpose of which I approved, and the 
 fulfilment of which I desired ; it is true you have put it into a 
 building of which I approved ; but I say, give me the money 
 back ; treat me as if I had been a business man seeking an 
 investment for my property, and give me four per cent, interest 
 upon every shilling which you have received from the time you 
 received it. It was not my learned friend, Sir Charles Russell, 
 who was responsible for this suggestion ; it was my friend, Mr. 
 Finlay, who was at his elbow : that in order to do what the 
 plaintiff requires, the defendants are to break their rule against 
 getting into debt, and to mortgage their house at. Shoreditch or 
 at Edgware. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : They go further than that. I 
 understood the suggestion to be this, that if there was not 
 money enough in the bank available to pay the debt when 
 established, that there should be a charge on the property ; 
 that it should be raised by force of the judgment which I was 
 asked to pronounce, that it should be raised by the ordinary
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 241 
 
 process of execution on the property at Edgware or at Shore- 
 ditch. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : That does go one step further ; I 
 thought I had made it iniquitous enough. Now, my lord, let 
 me ask your attention to the evidence upon the point. I am 
 now upon the question of evidence of sustained intention apart 
 from the vows. The first intention is avowed to Mr. Nihill 
 before Miss Allcard joins the sisterhood. How about sustain- 
 ing the intention by her? After she joins the sisterhood, she 
 proceeds to do the ordinary work of the sisterhood, not only in 
 the labours of the convent itself, but in going about and asking 
 for subscriptions. I need not turn in detail to the book which 
 your lordship has looked at. I am entitled to say this, that the 
 earliest of the documents which came to her hand, and were 
 used by her, was the letter of Christmas, 1870, and in that the 
 claim of poverty was most distinctly put forward. Reference 
 was made in it to the building which it was intended to erect, 
 and from that date, January, 1870, when she became a postulant, 
 until May, 1879, when she finally left the institution, Miss All- 
 card, as part of the routine of her conventual life, was going 
 from time to time to persons outside the convent, and was ask- 
 ing for subscriptions for the building, and for the work, upon 
 the ground and basis that she had herself given everything of 
 her own to the convent, and was giving everything to the con- 
 vent. If it were to be held by the court that Miss Allcard was 
 in the position of never having given at all, but was entitled to 
 come and say It is an investment, you must give me back 
 every shilling with interest at four per cent. it would be some- 
 thing like a fraud upon those who were asked by her to 
 give their money to this work. It strikes away the very 
 basis of the claim which she made. Every shilling which she 
 got, and which she rejoiced in getting rejoicing at having 
 collected ^5 here and ,5 there, and she writes to the mother 
 superior in glowing terms about it was obtained upon a pro- 
 fession which she asks you to declare to be null and void, 
 and a profession which she ought not to have made at all. 
 Now let me see what was the state of things after that, and 
 for that purpose I ask your lordship's attention to a few of the 
 letters. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : I have read them all. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I shall not trouble your lordship 
 with many extracts. The declaration of poverty seems to have 
 been signed in the year 1874, certainly before July, 1874, for in 
 July, 1874, that happens which Miss Allcard seems to have for- 
 gotten, that is to say, the mother superior went away, and Miss 
 Allcard was left in control of the convent.
 
 2 4 * ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 "THE CONVENT, July 2oth, 1874. 
 " MY DEAREST MOTHER, 
 
 "It was indeed a real treat to us all to get your two letters 
 this morning. I began to feel as though we should never hear 
 anything of you and father again. The time has seemed so 
 long since you left ; how lovely it must be where you are. It 
 is beautiful even to hear of it. We did enjoy your letters. I did 
 not tell sister Martha that I had not sent her letter. I see now 
 that I should have done so. I am so sorry that I did wrong 
 about it. I have told her now, and she has written another 
 letter better than the other, but she is very vexed that I should 
 read her letters to you. I was not sure whether I ought to do 
 so, and the first she wrote I did not look at it, but the second 
 was written when she was in such a passion that I thought I 
 ought not to send it without looking at it. I think, on the whole, 
 sister Martha has been better lately, for though she still gets 
 into great temper for the most trifling things." I need not read 
 the whole of it. " I had a letter from my brother Willie, with a 
 cheque for 2 i8s. id. I signed the receipt, and when I sent it 
 to him I begged from him for the hospital. I was half afraid of 
 doing it, but I thought I might as well try ; by return of post I 
 had a nice letter from him, and a ^5 note. I was thankful I 
 asked him." Your lordship will see at once, without my point- 
 ing out the argument, that she is there receiving a letter from 
 Willie, and an answer from him, in the absence of the mother 
 superior : " Since I began my letter I have received yours. I 
 do not know how to tell what a pleasure and surprise it was to 
 me to have it. It has given me something to think of all the 
 time I have been working this morning. If I only could keep 
 it always before me and realise my own nothingness, I should 
 then surely conquer my dreadful temper and my pride my 
 besetting sin. I will not wish that I could do this, but I will 
 determine to do it, and then I know I must conquer. I have 
 written as many as I could of Father Horsley's meditations, 
 nearly all I have heard, but I have been one week in the ward. 
 We had a splendid sermon on Sunday night the text, ' What 
 shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own 
 soul ! ' It was quite a kind of mission sermon. The people 
 were so attentive, and many I saw crying, as though they were 
 really touched by it. All the poor seem so pleased with Father 
 Horsley. We do miss our meditations this week. Sister 
 Agatha would tell you what bad begging days we have had at 
 Finchley. It seemed almost hopeless, but I felt sure we should 
 get some money somewhere else, and then Willie's ^5 came. 
 I hope the sisters at Cheltenham are getting on well, we have 
 heard nothing of them since their first letter, when they arrived." 
 The next allusion is an allusion to Miss Sturley and her illness,
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 243 
 
 " I am sorty Sister Mildred does not improve as much as we 
 hoped she would with the change ; perhaps when she gets to 
 Oban she may be better. Please give her my love. We are 
 all delighted at the thought of having father's journal, except, 
 perhaps, sister Agnes and sister Bridget, and they, we think, 
 are afraid it may outdo theirs." There are seven letters written 
 by her during the absence of the mother superior, when she 
 herself appears to have been in charge. 
 
 In 1875, there was another absence, and your lordship will 
 find that there were four letters written during that period, and 
 the letter of the ist of August, 1875, ' s again an important one. 
 I have read it once, so I will not read it all again. It refers to two 
 points which are material for my purpose. It is the letter which 
 contains the detailed reference to Edgware, and it says also 
 that she has received ^5 from her brother Willie. " I have 
 just written out a list of things we want for Edgware, and sent 
 it to mamma, asking her to give us something for the chapel. 
 I thought that you would like that the best. I hope she will 
 not think it too soon to ask her again, but I thought I might as 
 well try. I forgot to tell you that Willie sent me ,5 the other 
 day, and to-day I am going to write to two more of my brothers 
 and beg from them, they once before helped us. Your letter has 
 inspired us with fresh energy. We have been thinking over all 
 our friends to-day, and we at home intend to try and get as 
 much as Sister Dorcas and Sister Bridget. We were pleased 
 when your letter came." On the ioth of the same month of 
 August, there is a letter, one expression in which seems to show 
 that an answer had come back. It is an account to her of the 
 doings at the convent. " I think mamma's letter was a nice one, 
 at least I think it was meant to be kind. I did feel afraid when 
 I wrote to her and begged again from her so soon after the last 
 ^5, but I was still more afraid of *ny brother Willie. But when 
 they both sent us some money I was glad I had courage to 
 venture. I always feel so thankful whenever any of their money 
 comes to the convent. I always hope that somehow, I do not 
 know exactly how, it will be for their good, though their motive, 
 I am afraki, is only to please me." Then on the 23rd of the 
 same month there is a letter, and it was with reference to that 
 letter that I asked this question. I asked Miss Allcard whether 
 she was not very much interested at the time in the work, and it 
 was with reference to that letter she told me it was a happiness 
 to her to believe that her money was being directed to that good 
 work. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : The letters prove that. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : In 1875, I want your lordship to 
 note that she went to Torquay, to St. Raphael's Home, with 
 another sister, where they employed servants and handmaidens,
 
 244 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 and she compares it, though not advantageously, with her own 
 conventual life. In 1876 there are four letters, and in January, 
 1877, there is a letter which is not unimportant: "My dear 
 Mother, I received your letter this morning with Willie's en- 
 closed. I have written to him and sent the receipt signed. We 
 are so sorry to hear about father being ill. I do hope he will 
 be all well again by Tuesday." There is a letter about that date 
 from Mr. Allcard, which makes me think the letter ought to be 
 the 8th. There is a letter of the 2oth of January, 1877, but I 
 think that must be the 25th, or there is some mistake in. the 
 date, because the letter from Mr. Allcard is : " Dear Mary 
 Ann, I enclose a cheque," &c. [The learned counsel read the, 
 letter^} The point is that this was sent on, and she received it 
 while she was away. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : There is an earlier letter, long 
 before that, to the same effect during the previous absence a 
 letter about investments in London and South-Western Deben- 
 tures. She deals with it in the absence of the mother, and writes 
 to the mother about it in the same way. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : That is so. I think that concludes 
 the references I need make specifically to those letters. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : Before you part with the letters I 
 should like-to say what occurs to me in reading them, as Sir 
 Charles Russell may like to deal with it. There are two classes 
 of letters, one written to Miss Allcard by her brother, which are 
 of a business-like character, and the letters written by Miss 
 Allcard to the mother superior. The brother addresses Miss 
 Allcard as a woman, not only of intelligence, but as capable of 
 understanding a good deal of business matters, more than 
 ladies usually understand. He treats her as an intelligent 
 woman, and her letters to the mother superior show that she is 
 a woman of business. Taking the two together, and seeing her 
 in the witness-box, I am persuaded that she is a woman to be 
 treated on that footing. That may have some bearing on the 
 case. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I have brought my point to your 
 lordship's attention of her continued acquiescence in, and con- 
 tinued intention to do, this work apart from the question of 
 vow. There is no trace here of any reference to a vow, or to 
 an obligation under which she supposed she was acting. . The 
 evidence of those letters is evidence of the zeal which remained 
 fresh and undiminished in the cause to which she was devoting 
 the money. The evidence is of the state of mind not being a 
 state of submission, doing anything because she is told to do it, 
 or because she has before promised to do it, but it is evidence 
 of continued activity of a sustained intention which, if she had 
 made no promise before, might at that time have supported a
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 245 
 
 promise then made. Whatever the value of it is, I have now 
 quoted evidence which, I say, goes to prove that. But there is 
 something more. I wanted to get from Miss Allcard, and in 
 her own words, the acknowledgment of what her view was with 
 regard to this, and I will give it to your lordship in her own 
 words : " Q. Did you not intend to keep that vow of poverty 
 which you made of your own free will? A. Yes. Q. And as 
 you did not want to have any money for your own use, or for 
 your own purposes, did you not desire that every shilling that 
 came to you should go to the purposes of the sisterhood ? 
 A. Yes, while I was there, I did. Q. Do you suggest that any 
 shilling of your money has been used except for the purposes of 
 the sisterhood ? A. I do not know how it has been used ; I 
 have no means of knowing. Q. Miss Allcard, you do not mean 
 to say that ? A. I do not know how it was used. Q. You do 
 not mean to say that you had no idea how that money was 
 used ? A. I suppose it was used. Q. You suppose it was 
 used ; for what ? A. For the sisterhood ; but how or for what 
 I do not know. Q. What great expenses were there ? 
 A. Whether it was used to keep the sisters or to build the 
 hospital I do not know now." The purpose for which she gave 
 it she defines : " Q. Did you not hear, and did not the Mother 
 Superior, from time to time, speak to you with gladness and 
 thankfulness that they were able to contemplate a larger work 
 than they had previously been able to do ? A. Yes. * * * * 
 Q. Were you not glad to know that whatever money you were 
 able to bring in was helping them ? A. Yes." 
 
 There is just one other passage I want to read, and that 
 makes my contention complete on this point. I read to her 
 the passage from the letter of Mr. Nihill the printed letter 
 speaking of the enlargement of this place and I said this : 
 " Q. While these buildings were going on, you were taking- 
 great interest in them ? A. Yes. Q. And in the work that 
 was carried on there ? A. Yes. Q. And striving with all your 
 power to give and get help in that work ? A. Yes. Q. These 
 large expenses afterwards were undertaken, and the hospital 
 was built, I believe ? A. The hospital has been built since I 
 left in 1879. Q. When was it begun? A. The foundations of 
 the hospital were laid at the time the house was built ; but it 
 was finished after I came away. Q. It was contemplated 
 from the first? A. Yes. Q. The foundations were laid? 
 A. Yes. O. And it has been finished since you came away ? 
 A. Yes." 
 
 I only quote that to make this clear from her own words, 
 which I am anxious to rely upon where possible, that she knew 
 the money was being given for the purpose of the sisterhood, 
 that she knew it was being used for the sisterhood, that she
 
 246 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 saw the work being done, and approved of it, and was glad to 
 be able to make possible the work the work done at Shore- 
 ditch, which was contemplated before she left, and the founda- 
 tion of which she laid. 
 
 Now I think I have finished dealing with the first part and 
 the larger part of the question before your lordship, and I con- 
 tend upon this (and my learned friend, Mr. Warmington, will 
 address your lordship upon the rules of equity), that there is no 
 pretence whatever for saying, according to the ruling of any 
 case, that these transfers and gifts were matters of undue 
 influence, and were procured by undue influence. What they 
 were procured by was a sustained intention. Whether that 
 intention had been expressed in a vow or not seems of little 
 consequence ; it was an intention made and expressed before 
 the vow was entered into. The vow itself was the carrying into 
 effect of the intention which had been previously made at a 
 time of absolute freedom, and it was kept in such circumstances 
 of freedom from restraint, of the opportunity of communication 
 with her friends, the power of relieving herself at any moment 
 from any sort of influence or authority or coercion which might 
 have become irksome to her it was kept at such a time, and 
 in such circumstances that I say if there had been no antece- 
 dent promise at all, the gift of money would, under these cir- 
 cumstances, be sustained, and ought to be sustained, by the 
 Court. It is a gift made not for the individual benefit of the 
 person to whom it was made, but for that laudable purpose 
 which the donor and donee were alike interested in, and the 
 fulfilment of which was a source of happiness and satisfaction 
 to the donor herself. I do not go into details with regard to 
 the amount because my contention is that, if any account has 
 to be taken, the whole thing is on paper from beginning to end, 
 and there can be no perplexity or misstatement about it. It is 
 suggested, as I reminded your lordship a little time ago, that 
 they have invested the money, and have bought property with 
 it. Now I notice an unfortunate mistake in the public press of 
 what took place here on Saturday. It is said that Mr. Nihill 
 stated they had invested a large part of this property upon real 
 estate. Mr. Nihill stated nothing of the kind ; the only real 
 estate which belongs to the convent is the field at Edgwaie 
 upon which the house is built. The money expended at Shore- 
 ditch was not expended on an investment to bring in a return 
 to the sisterhood there is a ground rent of ^200 a year to be 
 paid, there are the rates and taxes, the expenses of renewal and 
 repairs, and so on, both at Edgware and at Shoreditch. It is 
 a mere coincidence of amount, but it is an odd one, that the 
 plaintiff specifies in the statement of claim that a sum of about 
 ^1600, or a little more, is remaining invested in railway stocks
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 247 
 
 in such a way that it is ear-marked, and she puts a distringas 
 upon it, and claims to have it returned. Through Miss All- 
 card's action, by her promise to Mr. Nihill before ever she 
 entered this place, that gentleman had been induced to make 
 an alteration in the plans, and that alteration involved a pay- 
 ment for eighty years of a ground-rent of 200 a year instead 
 of a ground-rent of ,130. It does so happen that the annual 
 income of that upon which a distringas has been placed 
 amounts to 70 a year, and the consequence is that the sister- 
 hood will be under a liability to pay this extra 70 a year for 
 ground-rent at Shoreditch in consequence of Miss Allcard's 
 action. I merely mention that to show the result of Miss All- 
 card's action. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : I entirely follow you with regard to 
 the vows : they have nothing whatever to do with it. The ques- 
 tion is whether it was a free act of the mind and understanding of 
 the lady who now seeks to avoid what she did, and whether she 
 did it under a religious obligation, that is to say, an obligation 
 of vow or not, seems to be immaterial. Whether she did it 
 under undue influence is material, but whether she bound 
 herself by vow or not has nothing to do with the question in my 
 opinion. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : Religious influence is a phrase 
 which must be tested and interpreted with regard to the circum- 
 stances. In one sense, everybody who contributes to the offertory 
 at a church does so under religious influence of one sort or 
 another. But undue religious influence must be shown for the 
 purpose of enabling a court of Equity to set aside the deliberate 
 act of an intelligent being religious influence must be unfairly 
 used, so as to control and subdue the will of the person over 
 whom it is exercised. Of course, there may be instances of 
 this ; but those eloquent sentences of Sir Samuel Romilly, 
 which the la>v reporter has been kind enough to preserve and 
 reproduce for us, are not applicable to the present case. No 
 doubt spiritual teachers have used the terrors of the unseen 
 world in order to control and practically destroy the will and 
 intellect of others ; but in all cases it is a question of degree. 
 The suggestion made by a friend, that money should be given 
 to the relief of a poor person, or to help in building a church, is 
 one illustration of religious influence; but the more direct and 
 deeper influence which is referred to by Sir Samuel Romilly is 
 also religious influence, though of a different class. What has 
 to be done here is to see whether this act was produced by 
 illegitimate religious influences by religious influences used 
 for the purpose, and having the effect, of producing an intention 
 that would not have existed but for their unfair and improper 
 use.
 
 248 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 Now, let me deal with the second point, namely, with the 
 question of laches. If I were in any doubt whatever with 
 regard to the case which I have put before your lordship, and 
 asked you to accept in this matter, I should think that all 
 possibility of doubt would be removed by the matter of laches 
 when I call attention to what the doctrine is and what the 
 facts are. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : I think you must distinguish on 
 this point between the claim to the two sums of stock in the 
 Midland and Caledonian Company standing together and the 
 rest of the property. If Miss Allcard is entitled to any relief 
 at all, I think that the claim to the two sums of stock goes 
 almost without saying. They are intact they are in specie, 
 and not proved to be specifically appropriated to any objects, 
 such as the ground rent. There they are. Following the 
 doctrines of the court, as I understand them, I do not see how 
 any laches can deprive the cestui qtte trust from claiming the 
 property which still remains in specie. As regards the rest very 
 different considerations apply. I think you must treat them 
 separately. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I think the doctrine of Equity 
 would be, that if you found the property in specie, and found 
 that the original transaction by which it came into the hands of 
 the donee was not defensible, it would not permit the continued 
 execution of a trust which was wrong, however long ago it was 
 created. Here, though there is not specific appropriation, there 
 is evidence of continuing liability in consequence of the action of 
 the plaintiff there is a continuing liability upon the trustee, if 
 Miss Skinner was a trustee. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : Is that the first point ? 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I think it applies to this. Quite 
 apart from the doctrine of laches, I think the general doctrine I 
 have put before your lordship covers these two sums. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH: Certainly. 
 
 The SOLICITOR- GENERAL : So far as the question of laches 
 is concerned, those two sums are outside the case upon the 
 evidence now before your lordship. Now, with regard to the 
 doctrine of laches, my learned friends have been putting the 
 point to the witnesses and your lordship that the time only 
 began to run from the time when the plaintiff knew that she was 
 entitled to recover. Of course, directly that point was stated it 
 disappeared, because, until the court had decided the case, no 
 one can tell whether she is entitled to recover or not, and the 
 doctrine of laches would disappear from the books. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : It might take this form. I might 
 decide that she was not entitled to recover ; the Court of Appeal 
 might decide in the same way, and then the House of Lords
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 249 
 
 decide two or three years hence that she was entitled, and, 
 according to the argument you are suggesting, the time would 
 begin to run from the judgment of the House of Lords, and not 
 before. I do not think your opponents meant to push it to that 
 absurdity. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : What is the test ? I take the 
 test from the case which my learned friend, Mr. Finlay, quoted ; 
 the observations are those of Lord Selborne. The judgment 
 points out that the point from which time begins to run accord- 
 ing to the doctrine of laches, is that at which the person is first 
 aware of the facts. It is not a question of coming to think you 
 are right or wrong in a particular construction to be put on the 
 facts, or that a particular action will succeed. In this case 
 occur these words : " Now the doctrine of laches in Courts of 
 Equity is not an arbitrary or a technical doctrine. (The 
 Lindsay Petroleum Co. v. Hurd, 5 Law Reports, Privy Council, 
 pp. 3-39.) Where it would be practically unjust to give a 
 remedy, either because the party has by his conduct done that 
 which might fairly be regarded as equivalent to a waiver of it ; 
 or where, by his conduct and neglect, he has, though perhaps 
 not waiving that remedy, yet put the other party in a situation 
 in which it would not be reasonable to place him if the remedy 
 were afterwards to be asserted ; in either of these cases lapse of 
 time and delay are most material. But in every case if an 
 argument against relief which otherwise would be just, is 
 founded upon mere delay, that delay of course not amounting 
 to a bar by any Statute of Limitations, the validity of that 
 defence must be tried upon principles substantially equitable. 
 Two circumstances always important in such cases are, the 
 length of the delay, and the nature of the acts done during the 
 interval, which might affect either party, and cause a balance of 
 justice or injustice in taking the one course or the other, so far 
 as relates to the remedy." At page 241 occurs this: " In order 
 that the remedy should be lost by ladies or delay, it is, if not 
 universally, at all events ordinarily and certainly when the 
 delay has been only such as in the present case necessary that 
 there should be sufficient knowledge of the facts constituting 
 the title to relief." The other case which I think is useful upon 
 the point is Mitchell v. Homfray (8th Queen's Bench Division, 
 587]: "The plaintiffs were executors of G., to whom the defen- 
 dant had acted as medical adviser. G. made a gift of ^800 to 
 the defendant. At the time of the gift no independent advice 
 was given to G., and the relation of physician and patient then 
 existed ; but the defendant had not been guilty of any undue 
 influence, and, after the relation of physician and patient had 
 ceased, G. elected to abide by the gift, and did in fact abide by 
 it during the rest of her life." It was held that the executors
 
 250 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 could not recover. Lord Selborne says : " When this case was 
 before this court on a previous occasion, certain questions to be 
 left to the jury were suggested, and their effect may be stated as 
 follows : Was the advance of ,800 a gift ? Was there an 
 undue influence ? And when was it removed ? Was there an 
 intention of abiding by the advance, if it was a gift ? Was the 
 signature of the testatrix obtained by fraud? This is the 
 substance of the questions put to the jury, and both parties were 
 content that these questions alone should be asked." Then : 
 "The findings of the jury imply all that ought to be inferred in 
 the defendant's favour ; they have found that the relationship 
 of physician and patient had come to an end long before the 
 death of the testatrix, and that she intentionally abode by what 
 she had done. It must be held, that whether she knew or not 
 that she had power to retract the gift, she was determined to 
 abide by her acts. This is not a case of mere acquiescence ; 
 she determined that she would not undo what she had done." 
 Then the judgment goes on to deal with whether her represen- 
 tatives could undo what she had done. "In Rhodes v. Bate 
 (Law Rep., i Chy. App. 252) it was laid down in clear terms, 
 that in order to uphold a gift made to a person standing in a 
 confidential relation, the donor must have had competent and 
 independent advice in considering it. This is undoubtedly the 
 rule, so long as the confidential relation exists ; but it is not 
 laid down in Rhodes v. Bate that advice of that kind is neces- 
 sary when the confidential relation has come to an end, and the 
 donor is no longer subject to its influence." I need not go 
 further. I quote those two cases for this purpose. I say there 
 is not only no laches, but there is evidence upon which a jury 
 would find, and must find, that the lady when she was quite 
 independent of control elected to abide by the gift. I submit 
 that is clearly proved by her own evidence in the case. Now 
 let us see from the beginning of 1879 what the course is. On 
 the Qth of May, 1879, she finally leaves the Convent. She had 
 left it earlier in the year ; she had stayed away at her mother's 
 house for some days : and she had written begging to be 
 allowed to come back, saying she hardly ventured to ask it ; 
 but she was allowed to come back. She stayed at the Convent 
 two or three months, during which time Miss Skinner was not 
 there. Mi=s Skinner only came once, that is on the Good 
 Friday when she saw her ; and in May Miss Allcard left the 
 Convent. There was no restraint on her, and when she left she 
 almost immediately afterwards became a member of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. One of the earliest things she does, as is 
 shown by the letter, is to consult her brother, who is a member 
 of the Bar, and has been so for twenty years. She consults her 
 brother about what ? About her property, and about what she
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 251 
 
 has done with respect to her property. She asks his advice, 
 and receives it ; and his advice is undoubtedly very proper 
 advice under the circumstances that she should at once, with- 
 out waiting for a legal adviser, execute that which he knew 
 would be a sufficient will to defeat the purpose of the will by 
 which she no longer wished to be bound ; and she executed 
 that will in May, 1879. She must have discussed with her 
 brother, and had every opportunity of discussing with him, he 
 having no especial sympathy with the Sisterhood, and being a 
 free and independent adviser, she discussed with him what she 
 should do. She deliberately elected that she would not ask 
 for the money which she had given to the Convent, but what 
 she would ask for was the return of the will, which, although it 
 was now valueless, she did not wish should remain in the 
 possession of the Convent. During 1879 she writes two or 
 three letters to the Mother Superior asking for the return of 
 the will, and asking for nothing else not suggesting in the 
 most remote way that she desires to have back again, or that 
 she makes any claim whatever with regard to, the property 
 which has been transferred by her to the Convent. A year 
 goes by before she consults her solicitor, and during that time 
 she has not only the advice of Mr. Willie Allcard, who is 
 a Protestant, but she has also the advice (and she could have no 
 better advice) of Father Christie, to whom she spoke on the 
 subject, and who would probably share her feelings with regard 
 to the Sisterhood of St. Mary-at-the-Cross. Having received 
 that advice, she acts upon it. The a wice is that she shall 
 leave to the Convent, to be used for the purpose of the Convent, 
 all the money that she has taken there and transferred to them. 
 That was the advice she got. Did she accept it, and elect to 
 act upon it ? Most certainly she did, and Mr. Blount's evidence 
 puts that beyond dispute. He and Miss Allcard do not exactly 
 agree with regard to the terms of the conversation which took 
 place between them, but it is impossible to read the two accounts 
 without seeing that substantially they say the same thing. 
 Miss Allcard went to him in order to instruct him to make a 
 will, and for that purpose he desired to see the father's will. 
 Upon seeing the father's will he must have seen that a sub- 
 stantial sum of money had been left to her own disposal, and 
 that a considerable sum of money was to be disposed of by her 
 by will, that she was to receive the income during her life, and 
 that the brother was the trustee of the settlement. He was put 
 on notice that her brother, a barrister, was concerned in the 
 matter, and knew all the particulars. He asks Miss Allcard 
 whether she is going to claim it or not. He, as a solicitor, says 
 the money you have given to the Convent is too much for you 
 to leave behind you, and her answer is that she has consulted
 
 252 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 her brother and Father Christie ; that she has been advised by 
 them, and that she does not mean to make a claim. She 
 conveyed to Mr. Blount's mind that she did not wish to claim it 
 back. My learned friend rode over that, upon the suggestion 
 that she did not know the amount to which she was entitled ; 
 but there is clear evidence in the letters that her brother is a 
 careful man of business. All she had to do, if there was any 
 question of amount, was to ask her brother. If it were a question 
 of amount Mr. Blount would have ascertained the amount ; but 
 she took that course which is mentioned in Michell v. Homfray. 
 What she did is described in these words : " Whether she 
 knew or not that she had the power to retract the gift, she was 
 determined to abide by her acts. This is not a case of mere 
 acquiescence. She determined that she would not undo what 
 she had done. We have not an election followed by a speedy 
 change of mind." We have not got a wavering mind which is 
 varying from one day to another as to what it will do. The 
 election was made first in May, 1879. It was communicated to 
 the solicitor in the year 1880, and no change in it took place, no 
 notice was given to the defendant of any change in that relation 
 until March 1885, that is to say, just upon six years after she 
 had left the door of the Convent, five years after she had told 
 her solicitor that she had been consulting with her brother with 
 regard to the money she had taken into the Convent, and that 
 upon the advice of her brother and Father Christie she had 
 determined to leave it where it was. There could not possibly 
 be a stronger case (I hardly like to go back and put it upon 
 laches] of acquiescence and election to abide by the gift which 
 she had made. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : If you can put it merely as a case 
 of election you will ged rid of the difficulty which I suggested 
 about the two sums of stock, as election onqe made is binding 
 and cannot be revoked. I rather question whether election in 
 the strict sense of the word is applicable in this question, and 
 whether it is not laches, or something equivalent to that. 
 Subject to what I may hear, I think it is hardly a case of elec- 
 tion in the strict sense of the word. Election in a popular sense 
 it may be, but not election in the legal sense. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I should submit it was election 
 in a legal sense. A person in 1879 being in doubt whether she 
 would have the property back, knowing all the facts, and quite 
 free from the influence which it is now alleged she was under 
 when she made the gift, makes an election which she communi- 
 cates to her own solicitor at the beginning of 1880, and upon 
 which she instructs the solicitor to act. There is a letter, the 
 date of which has at this moment passed from my mind, but
 
 SPEECH FOR THE DEFENDANT 2$3 
 
 there is a letter from her solicitors as late as 1884, in which they 
 say that the return of the will is the only thing they are to 
 ask for. 
 
 Mr. JUSTICE KEKEWICH : It is April 25th, 1884: "I hear 
 from my lawyer that Mr. Nihill has refused to let me have my 
 will. I am advised to take legal proceedings, but this I am so 
 very averse to do that I thought I would try writing to you my- 
 self. The will is, you know, of no value to you, as I have, of 
 course, made another, but the will you have being mine I am 
 entitled to have it. If I do not receive it in a few days I must 
 then put the matter entirely in the hands of lawyers. Most 
 probably had my lawyer applied to you instead of Mr. Nihill 
 the will would have been returned to me before this." I quite 
 appreciate the importance of that, that even then she only 
 alluded to the return of a useless document, and said nothing 
 about the return of the property at all. 
 
 The SOLICITOR-GENERAL : I think there is another letter 
 which bears on that, but I have made my point, and I am glad 
 to know that the documents have been under your lordship's 
 consideration. 
 
 . I have endeavoured to deal thoroughly with the case as far as 
 might be without entering into the details of the expenditure 
 and the figures which have been mentioned in this case, and I 
 now ask your lordship on behalf of the defendants for judgment. 
 I say that the plaintiff is right in saying that this was not a gift. 
 It was a transfer to Miss Skinner as trustee ; she is bound by 
 those trusts ; those trusts have been fulfilled, and I say the 
 plaintiff has shown no case of any undue influence on the part 
 of Miss Skinner in fact, she has disclaimed it or of Mr. 
 Nihill ; and the facts which I have put before your lordship, as 
 established by the evidence, have sustained all the allegations 
 in the defendant's statement of defence. 
 
 In some respects this is a remarkable case. To Miss Skinner 
 and the other members of the Sisterhood the result of this case 
 is not of such immediate and personal importance as the result 
 of a case generally is to a defendant in a suit of this kind. The 
 lives of the sisters are hard and simple enough, and whether 
 this property were or were not to remain connected with the 
 convent would make no difference in the daily life of those 
 ladies who have devoted themselves to this work; but at the 
 same time they are anxious, and of course Miss Skinner is 
 anxious, to guard for the purposes of the convent the money 
 which has been given for those purposes. They were for ten 
 years associated with Miss Allcard in a work in which they took 
 a common interest ; they remain bound by obligations which 
 she has now thrown off : they shared in labours from which she
 
 2$4 ALLCARD v. SKINNER 
 
 has drawn back, and I trust your lordship will see in the result 
 that there has been the utmost good faith on all sides, and, 
 while I contend that your lordship is bound in Equity to leave 
 to the convent the property so transferred, I cannot help hoping 
 that in future years Miss Allcard will feel no regret or remorse 
 in knowing that the money which she voluntarily gave to God is 
 still being devoted to the Divine purposes of good. 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND Co. 
 London and Edinburgh
 
 LAW LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES